Serena And Venus Williams' New Nike Ad Is An Ode To The Power Of Sisters
Nike’s “You Can’t Stop Sisters” video highlights the power of Serena and Venus Williams’ sisterhood
Serena and Venus Williams are history-making, culture-shifting, and groundbreaking athletes and sisters. Despite their strength and their sportsmanship, the narrative around these sisters is always one of competition. Who beat who, which sister is a better tennis player, can you believe they are competing against each other, etc. Well, the ladies are done with that noise. In an emotional and inspiring video for Nike’s “You Can’t Stop Us” campaign, Venus narrates over footage of the two sisters on the tennis court over the years and how she and Serena actually feel when they play against one another.
Spoiler alert: the video will make you cry and then want to call your sister.
“Ever since we were little girls, you’ve compared us to each other. My game versus her game. My ranking versus her ranking. My titles versus her titles,” Venus says in the video. “You saw two tennis players trying to win a game, we saw two sisters changing it.”
Serena also shared the video — titled “You Can’t Stop Sisters” — on her Instagram, writing alongside it, “When one of us wins, we both win.”
These two world-class athletes have dominated in a primarily white sport and they continue to shatter glass ceilings as women, as Black women, as tennis players, and for Serena — as a mom. The two of them are not competitors, they are culture-shifting moguls.
“Since the first time Venus and Serena Williams stepped onto a tennis court, the sport was forever changed,” Nike said in a statement.
Don’t try to pit these women against each other or reduce them to their statistics. As Serena summed up best in a statement: women — and sisters — are better together.
“We were born sisters, but we’ve become each other’s biggest allies,” Serena said. “For us, being sisters is everything. On and off the court, we’re each other’s biggest competitors, but we’re also each other’s biggest advocates. We are where we are today because we did this together.”
