Francesca Jones paused as she reached the net. After a 7-5, 7-5 win over Venus Williams in the first round of the Miami Open on Thursday, she bowed, and Williams smiled as the two shared an embrace.<\/p>\n
The match brought together two players separated by a generation. Williams, 45, was making her 22nd appearance in Miami, where she is a three-time champion. Three of those appearances came before Jones was born in 2000.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jones, ranked No. 93, earned her first career win at a WTA 1000 event and the 17th tour-level victory of her career. She improved to 3-4 at WTA-level in 2026, with Thursday\u2019s result her first win since January.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since the format\u2019s introduction in 2009, Jones is the first player to record a first WTA 1000 match-win over a former World No. 1. It was a result made more notable by who was across the net.<\/p>\n
Francesca Jones bests Venus Williams in two tight sets in Miami opener<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, she’s amazing,\u201d Jones said. \u201cIt’s phenomenal. People might focus on the fact that she’s lost consecutive matches, but I think we have to recognize that [recently] she’s played some tough three-setters. She doesn’t lose the serve [often], and it’s the vital part of the game. Of course, her movement isn’t what it used to be, but I think there’s no reason she can’t win matches, and I fully believe that she’s at a level where she can compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think she just needs to keep going. She’s building.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones described the matchup as a full-circle moment, one that stretched back to childhood — to trips to Wimbledon with her father, watching Venus and Serena Williams on Centre Court, and to the posters that still hang on her bedroom wall at home.<\/p>\n
It was those early experiences, she said, that \u201cmade me trust myself,\u201d and that she would \u201cfigure a way out to get here,\u201d even at a time when she was being told tennis might not be possible.<\/p>\n
Williams, the oldest player in the women\u2019s singles draw, extended the match into two tight sets, continuing a recent stretch of competitive outings that have included multiple three-set matches against higher-ranked opponents.<\/p>\n
“It’s difficult to ignore who’s walking on the court,\u201d Jones said, “especially when she’s wearing a shiny gray jacket, which is pretty cool. But I’m grateful to have had the opportunity. I’m glad that I got out there and had the opportunity to play against an idol like that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Francesca Jones paused as she reached the net. After a 7-5, 7-5 win over Venus Williams in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[123,125,124,5516],"class_list":["post-198889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-miami","tag-miami","tag-miami-headlines","tag-miami-news","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}