Doubles: why did Schneider team up with Venus Williams

The North American series of the tennis season, which will end with the US Open in September, began with tournaments in Washington, Memphis and Los Cabos. The leaders of our tennis — Daniil Medvedev, Andrey Rublev and Mirra Andreeva — will begin their performances in this segment with the super tournaments in Canada. This week, Karen Khachanov, Diana Schneider, Ekaterina Alexandrova, Anna Kalinskaya and other Russian tennis players joined the fight for the trophies.

An unexpected duet

Venus Williams is certainly one of the main legends of modern women's tennis, second in importance to her younger sister Serena, who only recently returned to the tour. The former world number one in both categories is already 46 years old, but she is still not retiring to "sports retirement." Venus has not won a match in singles for exactly a year, since the first round of Washington 2025, but things are going better in pairs. There have been two wins this season, and last year Williams reached the quarterfinals of the US Open with Leila Fernandez. And now it fell to 22-year-old Russian Diana Schneider to play with the legend, even at the end of her career.

The duo formed spontaneously. Initially, Venus planned to play in Washington with Alexandra Eala, with whom she performed a month earlier at the grass pentathlon in Bad Homburg. However, the Filipina eventually changed her mind about participating in the doubles tournament, deciding to limit herself to singles matches. After that, Williams Sr.'s choice fell on Schneider.

The Russian herself did not plan to compete in doubles either. During lunch with the team, Diana was approached by one of the organizers of the tournament and asked if she would like to perform with Venus. Schneider agreed, jokingly asking if Williams herself was aware of the situation. It is clear that in fact, this idea belonged to the American woman herself. Diana has already established herself as a great doubles tennis player, even if her main successes were achieved in a duet with one particular partner — of course, we are talking about Mirra Andreeva. It can be expected that she will team up with Mirra again in Toronto and/or Cincinnati, but Andreeva is not even in singles in Washington.

If the pair of Diana and Venus was created actually before the start of the tournament and the tennis players managed to train together quite a bit, then their rivals in the 1/8 finals had already played a duet. Norwegian Ulrikke Akery and American Quinn Gleason have been performing together since the start of the dirt season in Charleston this spring. There were not enough stars from the sky, but we played in the Strasbourg final and three more semifinals, including the relatively recent one in Berlin.

Therefore, the holders of the wild card did not look like favorites of the meeting, but the victory remained for the Russian-American pair. Williams and Schneider won in two sets (6-3, 6-4) and advanced to the quarterfinals. Interestingly, in singles, Diana will start the tournament in Washington either with her former compatriot Anastasia Potapova, or... Venus Williams. The final opponent will be determined on the night of July 28-29, Moscow time.

Anna Kalinskaya (last year's finalist will play with Daria Kasatkina) and Lyudmila Samsonova are also among our tennis players in the US capital. The latter played her first match after her wedding with her coach Alessandro Dumitrache and won against the champion of the Australian Open – 2025, former fifth racket of the world Madison Keys. Next, Lyudmila has a less status rival: qualifier Julieta Parekha or Chinese Wang Xinyu. It is important for Samsonova to play the American series well. After an unsuccessful first half of the year, she dropped out of the top 50 and now ranks only 70th in the ranking.

Gold ground: Rublev wins 18th career title

In the final of the tournament in Bostad, Sweden, the Russian defeated Luciano Darderi.

A test of strength

Four Russians are competing in the main draw of the Memphis tournament. Ekaterina Alexandrova received the status of the first "seeded", who is spending this season much less successfully than the last one. In the first round, she will play with her compatriot Kristina Lyutova, who was able to win the qualification. It is important for Alexandrova to play well in Memphis before the super tournaments in Toronto and Cincinnati. Last year, Ekaterina won two matches in total, so this year you can earn a lot of points to maintain your position in the top 20.

Anastasia Zakharova and Tatiana Prozorova are also performing in Memphis. The girls have already passed the first round: Zakharova was stronger than Linda Firvirtova, and Prozorova beat Solana Sierra. Then they will face more difficult opponents.

Only Karen Khachanov is playing for men this week. Recall that Medvedev withdrew from the tournament in Washington, and Rublev, after playing on clay courts in Bostad (the 18th title in his career) and Estoril (in the quarterfinals he lost to the future winner Luc Van Asch), will resume playing hard court in Montreal. Khachanov decided to play in Los Cabos, Mexico, where he received the fourth starting number, allowing him to skip the first round. In the second round, our compatriot will play with Australian Bernard Tomic.

Recall that last year's tournament in Mexico was won by Denis Shapovalov, a representative of Canada, who will begin his title defense in a match with Rinki Hijikata. Daniil Medvedev won the title here from Russians in 2022.