It\u2019s hard to call Venus Williams a Cinderella. But her storybook doubles run at the U.S. Open ended Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Did her career at the top level end with it?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams and Leylah Fernandez were beaten in the quarterfinals by the top-seeded duo of Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova 6-1, 6-2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Townsend and Siniakova clapped in appreciation of Williams, along with the entire Louis Armstrong crowd. The 45-year-old Williams walked off to a standing ovation, waving to the fans. Was she waving goodbye to her competitive career?\u00a0<\/p>\n
While this run showed she can still do damage in doubles, her preference is to be a singles player. But with her venerable age, and public distaste for long flights, where exactly does that leave her going forward?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Venus Williams, of the United States, acknowledges the crowd after losing quarterfinal doubles match with parter Leylah Fernandez. AP<\/p>\n
Katerina Siniakova of Czechia and Taylor Townsend of the United States react while playing against Venus Williams of the United States and Leylah Fernandez of Canada. Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI think out there Leylah and I, we kept telling each other to be the best singles player we could be. So our focus will always be singles,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to suddenly become a doubles player. I never did. I never will. It\u2019s the singles for me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams is one of the game\u2019s all-time greats, with seven Grand Slam titles in singles, 14 in doubles (with her sister Serena) and two more in mixed doubles. But at 45, she\u2019s not only the second-oldest person to ever play singles in the U.S. Open, but both open about her distaste for traveling and coy about her future.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Williams insisted. \u201cI was so focused on this tournament here. I really felt like we had a chance to really continue to play into the tournament, so I haven\u2019t given that any thought.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI do have commitments, places I said I\u2019d be, people expecting me to be there the next few weeks. So I have to go and show up. I\u2019m very serious about my commitments. I would never want to cancel now, so I\u2019ll try to keep those. If there is [an] opportunity for me to play, then hopefully I can get back somewhere this year. I just don\u2019t know. I really don\u2019t.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Venus Williams of the U.S. and Canada\u2019s Leylah Fernandez talk during the women\u2019s doubles quarter final match against Czech Republic\u2019s Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend of the U.S.. REUTERS<\/p>\n
Townsend and Siniakova \u2014 aiming for their third Grand Slam final as a duo, and first in Flushing Meadows \u2014 will face fourth-seeded Elise Mertens and Veronika Kudermetova in the semis. But the magnitude of the moment was not lost on them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cVenus is a legend,\u201d Townsend said, adding Williams was the inspiration to get her to pick up a racket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe earliest memory is obviously watching her, especially here at the U.S. Open. I loved her back-out Reebok dress. That\u2019s what drew me to tennis,\u201d Townsend said in an on-court TV interview. \u201cGrowing up watching her and Serena was an inspiration to me and my sister (Symone). It was an honor to share the court with her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s hard to call Venus Williams a Cinderella. But her storybook doubles run at the U.S. Open ended…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99,428,14687,9518],"class_list":{"0":"post-129566","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-us-open-tennis","11":"tag-venus-williams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}