{"id":16777,"date":"2025-07-23T20:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16777\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T20:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:06:10","slug":"venus-williams-becomes-older-woman-since-martina-navratilova-to-win-a-wta-tour-level-singles-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/16777\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams becomes older woman since Martina Navratilova to win a WTA Tour-level singles match"},"content":{"rendered":"

A victory in the first round saw Venus Williams<\/a> make history at the Mubadala Citi DC Open as she became the second-oldest woman to win a WTA singles match.<\/p>\n

Williams made it clear she wanted to send a message to herself and to others about coming back from a long layoff, about competing in a sport at age 45, about never giving up.<\/p>\n

And she did just that, delivering some of her familiar big serves and groundstrokes while beating Peyton Stearns, who is 22 years her junior, 6-3, 6-4.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEach week that I was training, I was, like, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m good enough yet’,” Williams said after her first singles match in more than a year and first singles victory in nearly two.<\/p>\n

“And then there would be weeks where I would leap forward and then there would be two weeks where I was, like, \u2018It\u2019s not happening\u2019. <\/p>\n

“Even the week leading up, (I thought), \u2018Oh, I need to improve so much more’. So it\u2019s all a head game.”<\/p>\n

Williams won four grand slam titles before Stearns was born.<\/p>\n

The only older woman to win a tour-level singles match was Martina Navratilova, whose last triumph came at 47 in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"Venus<\/p>\n

Venus Williams celebrates after winning a womens single match against Peyton Stearns (not pictured).\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The former No.1-ranked Williams had not played singles in an official match since March 2024 in Miami, missing time while having surgery to remove uterine fibroids<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She hadn’t won in singles since August 2023 in Cincinnati. Until this week, she was listed by the WTA Tour as \u201cinactive”.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just constantly praying for good health, so that way I could have an opportunity to play with good health,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of this for me is being able to come back and try to play at a level (and) to play healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backed by a crowd that clearly was there to see and support her at the hard-court tournament in the nation’s capital, Williams showed glimpses of the talent she possesses and the skills she displayed while earning all of her grand slam titles: seven in singles, 14 in women\u2019s doubles \u2014 all alongside younger sister Serena \u2014 and two in mixed doubles.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to play a good match,\u201d Williams told the fans, then added a phrase that drew appreciative roars, \u201cand win the match”.<\/p>\n

In Tuesday’s second game, Williams smacked a return winner to get things started, then delivered a couple of other big responses to break Stearns, a 23-year-old who won singles and team NCAA titles at the University of Texas and is currently ranked 35th.<\/p>\n

In the next game, Williams sprinted forward to reach a drop shot and replied with a forehand winner.<\/p>\n

\"Venus<\/p>\n

Venus Williams shakes hands with Peyton Stearns.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The first chorus of cheers arrived when Williams walked out into the main stadium at the DC Open, a 7000-seat arena that’s more than twice as large as where she was for her doubles victory a day earlier.<\/p>\n

Another came when she strode from the sideline to the centre of the court for the coin toss. The noise reached a crescendo when Williams began hitting aces \u2014 at 177km\/h and faster \u2014 the way she used to.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe played some ball tonight,\u201d Stearns said.<\/p>\n

“She was moving really well, which I wasn\u2019t expecting too much, honestly. Her serves were just on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

There also were moments where Williams looked as if it had been just as long as it actually has since she competed, including in the opening game, when she got broken at love.<\/p>\n

At the end, it took Williams a bit of extra effort to close things out.<\/p>\n

She kept holding match points and kept failing to convert them.<\/p>\n

But eventually, on her sixth chance, Williams powered in a serve that Stearns returned into the net.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not easy. It won\u2019t be easy. It\u2019s not easy for anyone out here,\u201d said Williams, who next faces No.5 seed Magdalena Frech, who’s 27.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I know I\u2019ll have to fight for every match. But I\u2019m up for that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A victory in the first round saw Venus Williams make history at the Mubadala Citi DC Open as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-16777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}