NEW YORK -- Venus Williams insists she is not a good doubles player. The 14 major championships she and her sister Serena won together tell a different story.

Without her younger sister by her side, Williams showed Thursday she has still got it by winning a women's doubles match at the US Open for the first time in more than a decade -- teaming with Leylah Fernandez to defeat the sixth-seeded pair of Lyudmyla Kichenok and Ellen Perez 7-6 (4), 6-3.

When it was over, Williams, 45, did her signature twirl-and-wave and called Fernandez "the best partner I ever played with -- outside of Serena." Fernandez, 22, even reminded Venus of Serena.

"Our energy really matched each other in terms of determination, in terms of not giving up, in terms of really still just focused and dialed in

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