By Marita Alonso

Copyright vanityfair

Serena, 43, retired from tennis after the 2022 US Open, which she lost in the third round. She’s widely considered the GOAT of women’s tennis, and, with 23 wins under her belt, she still holds the record for most Grand Slam singles titles in the open era.
This year, Venus, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, returned to the US Open as the oldest singles entrant since 1981 at 45 years old. While she lost in the first round of the women’s singles bracket, Williams made it all the way to the quarter finals of the women’s double draw with her partner, Leylah Fernandez. Before she was partnered with Fernandez, Venus played doubles with her sister, winning 14 grand slam women’s doubles championships from 1999 through 2016.
The first episode of Stockton Street was, fittingly, recorded at Arthur Ashe stadium, the main arena of the US Open, where Venus won 2 of her 7 Grand Slams titles and Serena won 6 of her 23. While the sisters have always had each other’s backs off the court, there were plenty of times in their careers where they had to face off against each other. “I feel like there was a period, though, where you were invincible and I couldn’t play better than you,” said the elder Williams to her sister in a preview of the first episode. “It was like, a two-year period.”
Serena then revealed the reason she was playing better in that period. “I think that’s when I went through my break up,” says Serena. “I wish I would have broke up,” responds Venus, causing both sisters to burst out laughing.
Although they can be honest with each other now, that wasn’t always the case. “As close as we are, we had to keep so many things distant because of our jobs,” Serena told The Hollywood Reporter in a conversation about the new podcast. “As much as she’s my sister, she’s also my opponent, and you can’t be as open as you want to be. So this a real opportunity to do something that we’ve been trying to do, and also just a discovery thing as well.”
“I think a lot of people have wondered, and I talk about this in the first episode, ‘Do we really actually like each other, because we have to play each other? Do you hate each other? Do you talk to each other?’” added Venus. “There’s so much in our relationship that we get to share that we never have before. There’s a lot to unpack.”
The first episode of Stockton Street will premiere on Wednesday, September 17 at 11 a.m. ET.
This story originally appeared in Vanity Fair España.