Venus surpasses current World No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki, the 2009 Madrid runner-up to Dinara Safina, who will fall in the rankings following her 6-2, 6-3 second-round loss to Alona Bondarenko.
The older sister said she isn't satisfied playing No. 2 to Serena's No. 1.
"I congratulate her on that ranking but I am aiming to get there myself!" Venus said. "Obviously when you're high in the rankings you want to keep going until you get to that number one spot. Serena and I being number one and two in the world is what we dreamed of growing up, but we've each dreamed of being number one. Neither of us dreamed of being number two."
Monday will commence the 46th overall week the Williams sisters will occupy the top 2 spots in the rankings. The sisters from Compton, California first took over the world's top two spots for four weeks between June 10 and July 7, 2002 (Venus No.1, Serena No.2); the next 40 weeks came between July 8, 2002 and April 13, 2003 (Serena No.1, Venus No.2) and there was one more from May 5 to 11, 2003 (Serena No.1, Venus No.2).
Venus entered Madrid coming off the worst beating of her career, a 6-0, 6-1 thrashing at the hands of Jelena Jankovic in the Rome quarterfinals. Williams rode her explosive first serve to a momentous win today, surrendering only four points on her first serve (33 of 37 first-serve points) and dropping serve just once.