Venus Williams Reminds Us She Serena Williams Aren't Twins

Venus Williams of The United States and Serena Williams of The United States hold their trophies following victory in the Ladies Doubles Final against Timea Babos of Hungary and Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan on day twelve of the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club on July 9, 2016 in London, England. — (Image credit: Getty Images)

If Google's top searches are to be believed, lots of people think Venus and Serena Williams are twins.

Venus recently spoke out about the common mistake, joking about it during an interview.

The tennis star was asked for her thoughts on her future retirement, and how she anticipated she would feel once she made that leap.

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"As that moment gets closer..." Venus began, interrupting herself to add, "and Serena ruined it for me. Because as soon as she retired, everybody thought I retired."

She went on to explain that people sometimes can't distinguish between Venus and Serena's separate career paths within tennis, saying, "Sometimes they even think we’re twins. So, if you guys did think so, we are two separate people, born on different days. It's okay, now you know."

Serena Williams of The United States is congratulated by her sister and opponant Venus Williams of The United States following their ladies singles third round match on Day Five of the 2018 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on August 31, 2018 in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City. — Serena Williams and Venus Williams have both had incredible tennis careers, but only Serena has retired so far.

For the record, 44-year-old Venus is a year older than Serena. And Venus is still actively playing tennis while Serena retired from the sport in 2022.

Venus went on to explain how she thinks she may feel when the time comes to retire.

"I always thought that I would be just crying when I had to retire, because it’s all you know," she said in the interview. "You spend your whole life programming your mind to do that every single day. It’s the first thing you think about when you wake up, the first thing when you go to bed. You dream about it and all these kinds of things."

She continued, "Now I realize that I won’t cry, because I’ve definitely given everything to this sport."

She concluded by saying, "I think more than anything, I’ll be grateful. I think that will be the feeling, and every now and then I'll want to threaten to come back."

Her sister, Serena, has hinted that she may want to return to pro tennis. She told Vanity Fair in July that the possibility was "always going to be in the back, back, back, back, back, back, back of my mind."

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.