December 27, 2018 is a date that will never be forgotten in Abu Dhabi’s sporting history as a sell-out crowd at Zayed Sports City got to witness tennis’ greatest sister act: Venus v Serena.

The Williams sisters faced off at the Mubadala World Tennis Championship on Thursday night and put on a high-quality, entertaining show for the 5,000 spectators in attendance.

It’s just the second year that women have been included in the MWTC lineup and what better way to introduce Abu Dhabi to the women’s game than to invite the legendary Williams duo?

In a clever move from the organisers, kids were allowed to enter the stadium for free on Thursday, and the venue was indeed buzzing several hours before the highly-anticipated showdown.

People were screaming ‘I love you Venus’ and ‘I love you Serena’ throughout the whole match, some asking for their shoes, others admiring Serena’s 15-month-old daughter Olympia, who quietly sat on her father Alexis’ lap the entire time, applauding every single point, whether it was won by her mother or auntie.

After a long rally that went Venus’ way, Serena was at the baseline near Olympia and spotted her daughter clapping. She immediately cracked up and told Venus on the other side: “She’s clapping for you”.

Serena later said in her press conference that moment was the highlight of the match for her.

“That’s a classy baby you know, she applauds both mommy and my opponent who happened to be her auntie. That was the highlight, seeing her clap, it was so cute,” gushed Serena.

Venus added: “She was so cute in the stands, such a little person, she was so good, it was so cute, I tried not to get distracted, it was really hard.”

It was Venus who edged past her sister in a third-set match tiebreak and the seven-time Grand Slam champion is hoping the MWTC would soon introduce a tournament for the women, instead of it just being a stand-alone exhibition match.

“It was a lot of fun. They told us before it was a sold out crowd so then you’re like ‘okay I want to play well for these people’ and it’s your first match back and you never quite know how that’s going to go. So we both went out there and tested our games and it was pretty close ‘til the end,” said Venus.

“I wish I had a few matches here to be honest, maybe next year there’ll be kind of a women’s tournament format just to have more matches and more matches against the best players in the world, that’s really the best way to start the season.”