Venus Williams became the second tennis player ever to win five Olympic medals after reaching the mixed doubles final on Saturday.
The 36-year-old paired with Rajeev Ram on Saturday, beating India’s Sania Mirza and Rohan Bopanna 2-6, 6-2, 10-3 in the semi-final and taking home the gold.
“I’m used to doing this with Serena and it’s such a crazy feeling to do it with someone else,” Williams told Yahoo! News. “To feel what I feel with Serena, [but] with someone else, is a wild emotion and I never thought it would happen.”
Both Venus and Serena share the record of four gold medals. Williams was paired with Ram at the last minute and shared how unpredictable she found the pairing to be.
“With Serena, I expect to win; I got to be honest. And [Ram and I], never play together, and we didn’t know how we were going to play,” she explained. ”So the emotion is almost even bigger because you don’t know what to expect.”
Williams and Ram were defeated on Sunday by fellow Americans Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Jack Sock, taking home the silver medal. Had they won on Sunday, Williams would have set a new record with five gold medals in Olympic tennis.
Still, with the silver medal win, Williams joins Britain’s Kathleen McKane (1920-1924) in a historic fifth Olympic medal win while remaining tied at four gold medals with her sister, Serena.