Editor’s note: This article appeared in the Jan. 21, 1998, edition of The New York Times after the Williams sisters played each other in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time.

MELBOURNE, Australia — Their beads fell from their Technicolor cornrows and littered the stadium floor. It was proof that meeting your sister in the second round of your first visit to the Australian Open is an unraveling experience, even for the poised and powerful Williams sisters, who have joint designs on the No. 1 ranking now owned by yet another overachieving teenager, Martina Hingis.

Today, there were fears that the rank newcomer, 16-year-old Serena, might wreak havoc on the already complicated family pecking order and defeat 17-year-old, 16th-ranked Venus — making good on the prediction by their father, Richard, that the littlest Williams was destined to be the greater champion of the two.

But after a heated beginning in which neither sister gave ground, Serena deferred to her elder and allowed Venus Williams, who made her own Grand Slam breakthrough when she reached the final of the United States Open last summer, to advance into the third round of this one with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 victory.

“Serena, I’m sorry I had to take you out,” the winner told the loser. “Serena hates to lose, and her reputation is she never loses to anyone twice.”

Venus is now 2-0 against her less-experienced sibling, and wary of their next encounter, which she hopes will happen in a final.

“I see us as the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds, interchangeable,” Venus said.

“Today would have been great fun if it were a final, but it wasn’t so fun to eliminate my little sister in the second round.”

Serena Williams has made a rankings leap from 304th to the low 40s since announcing herself as the next big threat to the establishment with upsets of Monica Seles and Mary Pierce last November, an upset of second-ranked Lindsay Davenport last week and a significant Grand Slam debut here when she defeated sixth-seeded Irina Spirlea in the opening round.

“If I had to lose in the second round, no better than to Venus; I tried to keep thinking of her as someone else, but I guess Venus has a little more experience than me,” said Serena, who tends to be a little more emotional than her older sister.

During the match, which the sisters insisted was an adventure rather than an ordeal, their mother, Brandy, sat in a neutral corner, smiling and fanning herself with her grounds pass.

According to her, it mattered less which sister won the match than how they would treat one another after it was over.

When Serena offered her sister a rather dejected handshake after conceding the match with a netted backhand, Venus immediately put a conciliatory arm around her shoulders and held tight.

Then the two joined hands for a shared bow, evidently the first of many.

“What you saw was something for the future,” Serena said.

The sisters were smiling, sort of, and baring their orthodontia a tad uneasily as they met at the net of the sun-dappled stadium court before their first meeting as professionals. The last time the siblings squared off was eight years ago, when Serena, then 8, got all the way to the final of her first junior tournament only to find herself swatted into submission by her big sister, 6-2, 6-2.

Serena Williams said this was a match that held no fear factor for her, and in the opening set she was her own worst enemy. She compromised herself from the service line with seven double faults and blasted a forehand way wide of the sideline at set point. She had a lead throughout the tiebreaker until Venus scooted in front, 5-4, thanks to a backhand blunder from the youngest but burliest Williams.

Both sisters were more proficient with their returns than with their serves in the first set, when they shared eight service breaks in 12 games. But in the second set, Serena, who wore green beads in her coif in honor of the Green Bay Packers and read some “Hamlet” to put herself in the mood for this intrafamily intrigue, was the sister who cracked first.

By the time Venus had sprinted ahead to a 3-0 lead, Serena had summoned a trainer to tape the sore right knee that hampered her campaign last week in Sydney, where she avoided a potential final-round clash with her sibling by bowing to the eventual champion, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, in the semifinal round.

“Serena is a great player, and even though she hasn’t played that much, she’s been taking people out left and right,” Venus said.

“Seeing her across the net was a little bit odd, but it’s to be expected, and in the future it’ll be the same.”

“What you saw was something for the future.”— Serena Williams after her first loss
to her older sister, Venus, in a major tournament. In 1998.