Venus and Serena Williams will play each other Tuesday in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. Tennis fans will see that as exciting. Psychologists would see it as a sibling nightmare.
They are both great tennis players. Serena's 21 major titles and Venus' seven speak to that.
But there is so much else going on that what very well might take place is something athletically sound, but aesthetically robotic and joyless.
That was the case in their most recent match, in the round of 16 at Wimbledon. Serena won, 6-4, 6-3, and if there ever was an hour and a half of going through the motions on a tennis court, that was it.