WASHINGTON \u2014 Competing at a tournament for the first time in more than a year, and in doubles for the first time in nearly three, Venus Williams hit a big serve on her initial delivery at the DC Open on Monday and, curiously, it was wiped out by a foot-fault call.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old Williams, an owner of 21 Grand Slam titles across singles and doubles, smiled incredulously, as did the other three players involved in the match in front of a full crowd that eventually included NBA star Kevin Durant. And then Williams carried on, displaying her trademark power on some strokes while teaming with Hailey Baptiste for a 6-3, 6-1 victory against 2014 Wimbledon runner-up Eugenie Bouchard and Clervie Ngounoue.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just nice to be able to play. Where I am at this year is so much different where I was at last year. It\u2019s night and day, being able to be here and prepare for the tournament as opposed to preparing for surgery a year ago,\u201d said Williams, who spoke in an interview with NBC earlier this month about having a procedure to remove fibroids from her uterus. \u201cAt the end of the day, it doesn\u2019t really matter if your health is not there. So it definitely put it in perspective for me and maybe made it easier to make the decision to maybe come back out here and maybe play even freer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her most recent match had been at the Miami Open in March 2024, and she said Sunday she had two goals in Washington: to have fun and to win.<\/p>\n
She did both \u2014 winning, yes, and contributing plenty to the cause, but also having a good time, high-fiving or fist-bumping Baptiste after some of their best points, laughing after others and waving to an appreciative group of fans that roared over and over for Williams. She and Baptiste hugged when it ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe crowd was insane. From the moment we stepped out of the players area, you could kind of feel the buzz. Walking onto the court, just felt all the love for the both of us,\u201d said Baptiste, a 23-year-old from Washington. \u201cI was obviously very nervous to play with her. I didn\u2019t want to let her down, first match back and everything.”<\/p>\n
It was full at 3,000-seat John Harris Court, where Durant showed up late in the first set, while across the way at the 7,500-capacity main stadium, only a few dozen spectators were scattered in the stands for an all-American singles match in which Reilly Opelka defeated Murphy Cassone.<\/p>\n
Asked to comment about the court assignments, tournament director Daniel Vallverd\u00fa said: \u201cThe tournament works to balance full singles and doubles ATP and WTA schedules, while coordinating with broadcaster requests for court assignments.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Williams, wearing a white visor as she so often has, was introduced before participating in doubles for the first time since the 2022 U.S. Open \u2014 when her partner was younger sister Serena \u2014 the stadium announcer mentioned that Venus has \u201cone of the best serves in the history of the game,\u201d that she \u201cturned pro in the last century\u201d and \u201chas won everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
That includes seven major singles trophies \u2014 five at Wimbledon, two at the U.S. Open \u2014 and an additional 14 in doubles with Serena, plus four Olympic gold medals.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s 14 years older than me and still plugging away,\u201d said Bouchard, 31, a former top-five player who announced that next week’s tournament in Montreal will be the last of her career. \u201cI have nothing but respect for her. She\u2019s such a legend. That was a pretty cool crowd for a doubles match.\u201d<\/p>\n
They sure were into it Monday, standing with phone cameras raised high when Venus first appeared at the court \u2014 and again when it ended.<\/p>\n
There will be other opportunities to see her this week: In singles, Williams was scheduled to play Tuesday night against Peyton Stearns, a 23-year-old American currently ranked No. 35 who won NCAA singles and team championships at the University of Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been training for months to get to this moment,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 Competing at a tournament for the first time in more than a year, and in doubles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-14609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}