Venus Williams on Saturday said she is relishing the prospect of her record-extending 25th US Open appearance, saying the experience of playing in her home Grand Slam never gets old.\n<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old US tennis icon is poised to make what could be her farewell singles appearance at Flushing Meadows on Monday, where she will face 11th seed Karolina Muchova in the first round.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper thrilling to be back,\u201d said Williams, who is competing in New York after being handed a wild card by organisers with her world ranking now standing at 610th.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt does not get old; it just gets more exciting,\u201d she told reporters.<\/p>\n
Williams only returned to tennis in July following a 16-month absence from the sport, winning her opening match at the Washington Open before exiting in the second round.\n<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s appearance comes some 28 years after she first graced the US Open as a 17-year-old in 1997, embarking on a fairytale run to the final where she lost to Martina Hingis.\n<\/p>\n
Following that dazzling debut, Williams would go on to forge a legacy as one of the greatest women\u2019s players in history, winning seven Grand Slam singles titles \u2014 two US Opens, five Wimbledons \u2014 and 14 Grand Slam doubles titles alongside sister Serena.<\/p>\n
Williams said Saturday that despite the litany of achievements over a career that has straddled four different decades, her passion for tennis remained undiminished.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI love my job,\u201d Williams told reporters. \u201cSo there\u2019s the joy right there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Asked what people could take away from her appearance, she replied: \u201cI haven\u2019t thought about what people would take away from it. I just mostly think about what I would get from it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Williams meanwhile said she will take a relaxed approach into her 25th US Open appearance. <\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be my best, and that\u2019s the expectation I have for myself, to get the best out of me. And that\u2019s all any player can ask for,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI haven\u2019t played as much as the other players, so it\u2019s a different challenge \u2026 I\u2019m just trying to have fun, stay relaxed, and be my personal best.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
While Williams\u2019 professional career may be drawing to a close, the US veteran says she expects to still be swinging a racquet well into old age.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ll always play tennis. It\u2019s in my DNA. So it doesn\u2019t matter if it\u2019s now or 30 years from now,\u201d Williams said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cGod willing, I\u2019ll be here, we\u2019ll all be here, we\u2019ll all be hitting balls. Maybe I\u2019ll come back to watch. Maybe I\u2019ll be saying I did it better, and it won\u2019t be true.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in any case, tennis will always be one of the most important parts of my life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Williams\u2019 participation also falls on the 75th anniversary of African-American trailblazer Althea Gibson\u2019s first appearance at the US national tennis championship in 1950.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the most important part is that we are celebrating it and recognizing it, because Althea accomplished so much, and a lot of it has not been given the credit it deserves and the attention and the praise,\u201d Williams said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s the most important part to me, just shining light on it and seeing, just acknowledging that.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams on Saturday said she is relishing the prospect of her record-extending 25th US Open appearance, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-88647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88647","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=88647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}