Serena Williams has survived another scare to beat older sister Venus. She won 3-6 6-3 6-4 on Thursday in the latest installment of their on-court sibling rivalry. They competed to reach the quarter-finals of the inaugural Top Seed Open in Lexington, Kentucky.
Serena was five points from defeat against world number 60 Bernarda Pera in her first-round match of the tournament. She had to rally back from a set down and 4-2 final set deficit to prevail in a battle.
With the win, Serena improved to 19-12 in career head-to-head meetings with Venus.
“It was a very high quality match,” said Serena. “There was a lot of long points, running me around and then at one point it was just big serves and so I thought that was really interesting as we both started serving really well and returning well.”
Serena earned a quick break to go ahead 2-1 before Venus could grab momentum. She eventually used a fierce backhand winner to get to 5-4 before going on to serve out the match on her first match point.
Serena made a fast start to the match. She had break point chances for a 3-0 double break lead. However, Venus stormed back with a five-game win streak. She closed out the opening set with a powerful serve.
In the second set Serena broke Venus with an inside-out backhand winner to pull ahead 4-2 and then closed out the frame with ease to force the decider.
In the next round, Serena will face either Canadian qualifier Leylah Fernandez or American wildcard Shelby Rogers.
“I’m just here to play another match just to get match tough for New York,” said Serena. “I’ve done absolutely nothing but train and practice and so I am really low on the matches and so this is really helping.”