Venus Williams was however not at full strength as she is suffering from a virus.
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In one of the most shocking results of the 2016 Olympics to date, defending gold medalists Venus and Serena Williams lost in the first round of the women’s doubles tennis tournament. The sisters were upset by Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova of the Czech Republic.
Dropping points at key moments in the first set proved their downfall, losing it 6-3. Though their opponents have never won an Olympics, they lost to a 6-3, 6-4 final score.
This marks the second defeat for Venus who also went down in the first round of women’s singles tennis.
Meanwhile, Serena had better luck clinging to her Olympic singles gold medal after winning with a convincing 6-4, 6-2 victory over Australia’s Daria Gavrilova on Sunday. “We had a chance to compete for our country, we did the best that we can”.
The Americans, also featuring first-time Olympians Brittney Griner, Ella Delle Donne and Breanna Stewart, have won 42 consecutive Olympic games.
“We played bad and it showed in the results”, said 22-time Grand Slam singles title victor Serena. When Serena is hitting the ball this well and playing with this much confidence, there’s not many women on tour who can even steal a set from her. Serena is super focused and doing a great job of finishing points quickly and playing clean tennis overall. “[.] Basically my whole life I’ve been doing this and I haven’t had a life and I don’t think I deserve to be paid less because of my sex”, she said.
Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal won their matches, as did Serena Williams in the women’s singles draw.
“Today was not our best day as a team”.
Zheng’s win was the second top victory of the day for China after national number one Zhang Shuai saved three match points to beat Swiss 12th seed Timea Bacsinszky, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4, 7-6 (9/7).
But Venus, who won the individual title at Sydney 2000, saw her hopes of a fifth gold ended by Safarova and Strycova.
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Williams and Cornet have played each other six times, and the duo is tied at 3-3 in their career meetings.
