Tennis superstars Venus and Serena Williams have won nine of the last 11 Wimbledon tournament championships combined, but there won’t be a 10-out-of-12 for the famous pair of sisters.
Both Williams sisters were eliminated from the fourth round of the tournament on June 27. Venus, a five-time Wimbledon champ, was defeated 6-2 and 6-3 by Bulgaria native Tsvetana Pironkova, while Serena fell to Marion Bartoli, 6-3 and 7-6.
“Definitely not our best day,” Venus told TV and news reporters after the match, explaining how she and Serena hardly ever lose a match on the same day. According to ESPN, the last time they both lost on the same day was during the third round of the 2008 French Open. “Obviously it’s not something we planned. I think we both envisioned seeing this day going a little bit different.”
Venus told reporters that she was expecting the possibility of facing her sister in the final round, which would have capped off a great return to tennis for Serena, who sat out from tennis for about a year due to severe health issues. Serena, a four-time Wimbledon title-holder, told ESPN reporters that she still expected to win the tournament, despite all the time she missed away from the game.
“I never came here thinking I would lose,” Serena said. “That’s my attitude. You win some and you lose some. Today just happened to be the one that slipped under me.”
Still, Serena was proud of how well she did after returning from her battle with pulmonary embolism, a blockage of the main artery of the lung.
“I think I did really well just being able to come back and play and win some matches, and just really play tough,” Serena told ESPN. “…Today I lost, but I was able to kind of hang in there and play tough. And I can only get better. That can potentially be really scary, because I can only go up from here and I can just do so much more.”