Venus and Serena Williams reunited on court at the US Open on Friday night, their first appearance together at the tournament in four years, but the doubles pairing ended in a narrow defeat. The match, played before an enthusiastic Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd firmly behind the sisters, underlines that Serena, 44, is continuing her comeback after several years out of the sport, having previously had to pull out of a planned reunion at Wimbledon this summer through injury.

The Williams sisters lost to Taiwan's Chan Hao-ching and Australia's 20-year-old Maya Joint 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(10) in a contest lasting just over three hours. Venus and Serena dropped the first set before fighting back to force a tie-break in the second, and then battled through a tense final-set tie-break in which they led early before their opponents rallied to clinch victory. Despite the loss, the display was seen as evidence that the two-time US Open doubles champions (1999 and 2009) remain competitive at the top level.