{"id":2538,"date":"2025-07-11T21:30:06","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T21:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/2538\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T21:30:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T21:30:06","slug":"venus-williams-tennis-legend-accepts-wild-card-to-make-playing-return-at-dc-open-after-16-month-absence-tennis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/2538\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams: Tennis legend accepts wild card to make playing return at DC Open after 16-month absence | Tennis News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Venus Williams has accepted a wild-card invitation to play singles at this month&#8217;s DC Open, which would be the seven-time Grand Slam champion&#8217;s first tournament in more than a year.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, who turned 45 in June, has not competed in an official match since the Miami Open in March 2024, where she lost in the first round as a wildcard.<\/p>\n<p>She was announced as a wild-card entry for this February&#8217;s BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/tennis\/news\/12110\/13316070\/venus-williams-will-not-play-indian-wells-despite-wildcard\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">before confirming she was not playing there after all.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But, five months on, Williams confirmed she would play at the Washington DC event, which features both the WTA and ATP Tour, with the tournament running from July 21-27 live on Sky Sports Tennis.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement released by tournament organisers, Williams said: &#8220;There&#8217;s something truly special about DC: the energy, the fans, the history.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This city has always shown me so much love, and I can&#8217;t wait to compete there again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>        Twitter<\/p>\n<p>                This content is provided by Twitter, which may be using cookies and other technologies.<br \/>\n                To show you this content, we need your permission to use cookies.<br \/>\n                You can use the buttons below to amend your preferences to enable Twitter cookies or to allow those cookies just once.<br \/>\n                You can change your settings at any time via the <a href=\"#privacy-options\">Privacy Options<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>                Unfortunately we have been unable to verify if you have consented to Twitter cookies.<br \/>\n                To view this content you can use the button below to allow Twitter cookies for this session only.<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-permanently\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\" data-show-on-fallback=\"false\">Enable Cookies<\/a><br \/>\n                <a href=\"#\" class=\"ui-consent-roadblock-body__link ui-consent-roadblock-once\" data-single-click-vendor-name=\"twitter\">Allow Cookies Once<\/a><\/p>\n<p>DC Open chairman Mark Ein said: &#8220;She has inspired people around the world with her accomplishments on the court and her visionary impact off the court.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know how much it means to our DC fans and community to be able to watch her compete in person this summer.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Williams&#8217; most recent Grand Slam appearances came in 2023, when she exited in the first round at Wimbledon &#8211; after slipping in the first set and hurting her right knee &#8211; and the US Open.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, the older sister of 23-Grand Slam winner Serena, won her seven Grand Slam titles between 2000 and 2008, five of which came at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the ATP and WTA Tours, as well as the US Open in New York, live on Sky Sports in 2025 or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nowtv.com\/watch-sky-sports-online?DCMP=ilc_skysports_nc_articlelink\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stream with NOW<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11677\/12572660\/download-the-sky-sports-app-premier-league-goals-f1-race-control-and-more-at-your-fingertips\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky Sports app<\/a>, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skysports.com\/football\/news\/11095\/13131189\/sky-sports-plus-launches-in-august-to-give-more-choice-to-fans-via-live-streams-app-and-new-channel\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Find out more here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams has accepted a wild-card invitation to play singles at this month&#8217;s DC Open, which would be&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-2538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538","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=2538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}