Venus Williams may have fallen short on the singles side at the 2025 US Open, but her doubles dream is alive and well.

Williams and her doubles partner, 22-year-old Canadian Leylah Fernandez, defeated the duo of Eri Hozumi and Ulrikke Eikeri in straight sets Saturday, 7(7)-6(1), 6-1. The win puts Williams and Fernandez into the Round of 16, giving Williams her best result at a Grand Slam in nearly a decade.

After the win, Fernandez encouraged Williams to do her signature twirl-wave. Williams obliged, and then let Fernandez greet the crowd as well.

Hozumi and Eikeri took an early lead in the first set, but Williams and Fernandez were able to come back from 4-2 down to eventually force the game to a tiebreak. And in the second set, they were absolutely dominant.

Williams and Fernandez will now play the winner of a matchup between Zhang Shuai and Ekaterina Alexandrova, the No. 12 seed, and an unseeded British pair, Sonay Kartal and Katie Boulter. Those two pairs will play on Sunday.

What does this win mean in terms of Venus Williams’ career?

Williams returned to the tour this year after more than a year away, participating in the 2025 Washington Open and earning wins in both the singles and doubles competitions. The wins in D.C. were her first in nearly two years.

She was then offered a wild card spot in the US Open, and forced a third set against No. 11 Karolína Muchová before ultimately running out of gas.

In general, it’s been a slow decade for Williams, who hasn’t made it past the third round of a major since 2017. That year, on the singles side, she made two finals (Australian Open, Wimbledon) and a semifinal (US Open).

The 2025 US Open run is only the fourth time that Williams has participated in a major doubles competition since 2016, when she and her sister Serena won doubles at Wimbledon. Venus and Serena’s last appearance on the doubles stage was at the US Open in 2022; they did not advance past the first round.

Venus Williams has rarely played doubles with players who aren’t her sister. Fernandez is just the fourth non-Serena partner that Williams has played with, and just the second she’s played with at a major tournament. At the 2021 French Open, Williams played with a then-teenage Coco Gauff, but the two did not advance past the first round.

But with Fernandez, Williams has now matches her best doubles result since that 2016 Wimbledon run: a third-round finish at the 2018 French Open with Serena. (Women’s doubles plays one fewer round than the singles side.)

For Fernandez, it’s only been two years since she reached this level on the doubles side. In 2023, alongside American Taylor Townsend, Fernandez made it to the final of the French Open and the quarterfinal of the US Open.