{"id":18658,"date":"2025-07-23T20:09:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/18658\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T20:09:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T20:09:14","slug":"venus-williams-joins-martina-navratilova-in-washington-open-record-books-with-memorable-win-this-has-been-just-a-beautiful-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/18658\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams joins Martina Navratilova in Washington Open record books with memorable win \u2013 \u2018This has been just a beautiful night\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venus Williams<\/a> defied the odds to beat Peyton Stearns 6-3 6-4 at the Washington Open at the age of 45 in her first competitive singles match of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams accepted a wildcard into the tournament, the first time she has played singles this season. But despite a distinct lack of match practice, the seven-time Grand Slam champion made relatively short work of beating Stearns, who is 22 years her junior.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams will play fifth seed Magdalena Frech in the last 16, but she has yet to announce whether this is a one-off return to the tour, or whether she is gearing up to play in what would be her 25th US Open<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Williams, who won the first of her two US Open titles 25 years ago, is now the second-oldest woman to win a match on the tour after Martina Navratilova, who won her first-round match at Wimbledon back in 2004 at the age of 47.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m not here for anyone else except for me,” Williams said after the match, reported by BBC Sport<\/a>. “I have nothing to prove. Zip. Zero.<\/p>\n

“I’m here for me because I want to be here. And proving anyone wrong or thinking about anyone has never gotten me a win and has never gotten me a loss.”<\/p>\n

Five-time Wimbledon champion Williams had an injury-plagued 2023 season, before losing in the first round of both Indian Wells and Miami in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was offered a wildcard for Indian Wells this season, but turned it down<\/a> – leading to speculation that she might never return to the tour.<\/p>\n

But that has been quashed now, not just by her appearance in Washington, but by the manner in which she won.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“You know, it’s the first step, and the first match is always extremely difficult,” Williams said on court<\/a> after her win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to describe how difficult it is to play a first match after so much time off.<\/p>\n

“So going into the match, I know I have the ability to win, but it’s all about actually winning. So this is the best result, to play a good match and win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m here with my friends, family, people I love, and the fans, too, who I love and they love me, so this has been just a beautiful night.”<\/p>\n

Williams also played doubles<\/a> in Washington, winning her first round match alongside Hailey Baptiste.<\/p>\n

Norrie, Evans and Raducanu also win in DC<\/p>\n

It was a good day for British players in Washington, with Cameron Norrie, Dan Evans and Emma Raducanu also recording victories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Norris upset Lorenzo Musetti 3-6 6-2 6-3, Evans beat Alex Michelsen 6-4 6-4 while Raducanu overcame seventh seed Marta Kostyuk 7-6(4) 6-4.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Norrie\u2019s comeback seems well and truly on after injury derailed the latter part of his 2024 season, with the former world No. 8 struggling for form earlier this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a run to the Wimbledon quarter-finals seems to have revitalised Norrie, who had to dig deep against a player ranked seven in the world.<\/p>\n

“I just kind of let go of the expectations and I’m playing tennis more to enjoy it now,” Norris said afterwards, before adding he was playing “like a kid again”.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to enjoy it otherwise you can get burned out on this long schedule.”<\/p>\n

As for Raducanu, her victory sets up a mouth-watering clash with Naomi Osaka in the next round.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I think it\u2019s a great match for a lot of spectators, which is great to be a part of,” Raducanu said after her win.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I felt the same way when I played Aryna [Sabalenka] at Wimbledon. That atmosphere was unbeatable for me. I think all the exposure I get to these top opponents\u2026 [Osaka has] won four Grand Slams, so an incredible achievement and incredible career so far.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And she\u2019s been playing really good tennis this year. Yeah, it will be a great test of my own game and myself.”<\/p>\n

Watch and stream top tennis action live and on demand on TNT Sports and discovery+<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams defied the odds to beat Peyton Stearns 6-3 6-4 at the Washington Open at the age…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18659,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[8165,101,118,56,54,55,7511,11940],"class_list":{"0":"post-18658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-peyton-stearns","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom","14":"tag-venus-williams","15":"tag-wta-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}