The sisters, who won the women’s doubles title in 2000, 2008 and 2012, were stunned in the first round by the Czech pairing of Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova.
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Seeded No. 1 at the Rio de Janeiro Games, Williams was hardly at her best in the 91-minute contest against Gavrilova, who is ranked 46th and only once has been past the second round at a major tournament.
They suffered their first defeat in 16 Olympic matches playing together.
Three-time doubles gold medalists Venus and Serena Williams have lost their first-ever Olympics doubles match.
Fresh off ending Aussie Daria Gavrilova’s Olympic dream, United States tennis megastar Serena Williams has offered up advice to Australian swimming sisters Bronte and Cate Campbell: “Family first”.
“We played awful”, Serena said, “and it showed in the results”.
The Czechs, meanwhile, are unseeded.
“Oh that’s cool. Well I hope they can get gold and silver – I always root for sisters”.
Strycova replaced Karolina Pliskova, who withdrew because of Zika concerns.
The only match the Czech duo had before Sunday night as a team was a defeat in the Fed Cup past year. “We had a chance to compete for our country and we did the best that we can”.
“I don’t know why”.
The shock result means the top two seeds in both doubles competitions have already been eliminated, with top seeds Nicolas Mahut and Pierre Hugues-Herbert of France having lost to Colombia’s Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah.
The fans couldn’t seem to settle on which woman they wanted to win. Then she changed course, unconvincingly.
“But it was a challenge”, Safarova continued, “and we love challenges”.
Earlier Sunday, Serena started the defense of her singles title with a 6-4 6-2 win over Australia’s Daria Gavrilova.
Together, Venus, 36, and Serena, 34, have won 15 matches together across Olympic Games and Grand Slam tournaments.
Instead, U.S. women’s tennis coach Mary Joe Fernandez did, saying that Williams was sick before arriving in Brazil.
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In the doubles, played under the lights, when occasional chants of “USA!” would rise from some spectators, other members of the crowd would respond with boos. But Safarova and Strycova again pounced on Venus in her next service game, breaking to serve for the match. “I wasn’t crossing the way I need to cross”. In the third set, Williams seemed to take control with a 4-1 lead, but experienced difficulty closing out the match.
