Venus Williams reveals Serena Williams delivered one of the wisest things she ever heard from a teenager. In 1999, both Venus and Serena made the US Open semifinal. At the time, Venus was just 19 and Serena was 17. Before their US Open semifinal matches, Venus asked Serena how she felt about both of them competing in a Grand Slam semifinal on the same day.
Serena then delivered words that Venus still perfectly remembers to this day: “Well, since you have to show up. Why not compete?”
Venus Williams recalls Serena’s wise words from the 1999 US Open
“Picture this, it’s 1999 and it’s the US Open.
And as we fast forward, it’s semifinals and both my sister, Serena Williams and I are in the semifinals. I had just turned 19 and Serena was 17 years old. We were babies. So we’re both in the semifinal and of course, if anyone knows anything about my dad, he had said a lot of things like, ‘Venus and Serena will be No.
1 in the world, they’ll be the greatest to ever play, they’re going to play each other in a lot of finals,’ you know. So of course, we both wanted to be in that final. We were also in the doubles semifinals too and I remember we were playing the match.
I asked her, ‘Oh, how do you feel about tomorrow because we’re both playing our singles semifinal tomorrow?’ And she says, ‘Well, since you have to show up. Why not compete?’ And as a 17-year-old, this is the wisest thing that I’ve ever heard a 17-year-old say.
And her perspective on it was incredible and as I look back, refreshing and amazing,” Venus said in the latest video uploaded on her YouTube channel, via Sportskeeda.Unfortunately for Venus, she was beaten by Martina Hingis in the 1999 US Open semifinal. But at least, Serena won the title after beating Hingis in two sets in the final.