Serena, whose sister Venus, gold medal victor back in 2000 in Sydney, had surprisingly been eliminated on Saturday by Kirsten Flipkens of Belgium, closed out the second set with much more ease than she won the first as the wind dropped.
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Sunday’s match at the Rio de Janeiro games was Serena’s first since she won her Open-era record-tying 22nd Grand Slam title at Wimbledon last month.
“We played awful”, Serena said, “and it showed in the results”.
The American top seeds lost 6-3 6-4 to Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova, who were only paired together at late notice.
Even the ball boys were having wind trouble – throwing the balls off course when the serving players were asking for them.
Neither of the unseeded Czech pair had previously won an Olympic doubles match, also losing their only previous outing together in a Fed Cup match a year ago.
Serena, 34, can still become the first woman to win two Olympic singles titles after the London 2012 gold medallist beat Australia’s Daria Gavrilova earlier on Sunday.
Venus, 36, also lost in the singles on Saturday, with U.S. women’s Olympic tennis coach Mary Joe Fernandez saying afterwards the seven-time major champion had been sick since before she arrived in Brazil. Fernandez also said Venus was dealing with cramping, dehydration and an upset stomach after Saturday’s loss.
Safarova and Strycova did their best to keep hitting shots toward Venus when she was at the baseline, while Serena was left to stand near the net and watch those exchanges.
“It (the first set) was really tight and the (windy) conditions were really tough”, Williams said “We played some wonderful points in the first set”.
With US Secretary of State John Kerry and gymnastics gold medal favourite Simone Biles looking on, seven-times grand slam victor Williams won the first set but became frustrated as the match wore on, losing 4-6 6-3 7-6 (5) to the world number 62.
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But Venus got broken there, allowing Strycova to serve out the surprising victory.
