Venus Williams has accused sister of wrongly causing tennis fans to think she's retired. The 44-year-old, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, remains an active player on the circuit despite not playing in a major event since the 2023 .

It was at the same stage 12 months previously where Serena, the younger of the siblings, waved goodbye to the sport in emotional scenes at Flushing Meadows.

She walked away with 23 Slam titles to her name, and is widely considered the most dominant female player of all time.

And Venus has now spoken out on the impact of Serena's decision, claiming it's prompted misleading views on her own career. In fact, the former world No.1 is adamant she still hasn't set a timeframe on when she'll step away.

"Serena ruined it for me because as soon as she retired, everybody thought I retired," she said in a television interview. "And sometimes I even think we're twins. So if you guys did think so we are, we are two separate people born on different days."

Williams, who has won five and two US Open titles in her esteemed career, also explained why she won't be tearing up when she does eventually retire. "I always thought that I would just be just crying when I had to retire because it's all you know, you spend your whole life just like programming your mind and do that every single day.

"It's the first thing you think about when you wake up and the first thing when you go to bed and like you dream about it and all these kinds of things. So now I realise that I, I won't cry because I've definitely given everything to the sport."

Williams, who also has three gold medals, 14 Grand Slam doublesand two mixed doubles titles to her name, has played in tournaments this year in Indian Wells and Miami. She lost in the first round of both events, and is currently ranked outside the world's top 500.

But she insisted she was still able to complete with the best, adding: "It's nice to be in a place where I can pick and choose, but my game is always at a high level. Even if I'm not on tour, I always keep my game quite high."

Even in her peak years, the all-time great combined her tennis career with other interests. Back in 2007, she received her associate degree in fashion design, and launched her own clothes label, EleVen.

At the time, she said: "I love fashion and the idea that I am using my design education to actually create clothing and footwear that I will wear on and off the tennis court is a dream come true for me."