{"id":63387,"date":"2025-08-06T20:12:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63387\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T20:12:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:12:08","slug":"venus-williams-tells-tennis-world-not-to-rule-her-out-for-2026-season-at-cincinnati-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/63387\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams tells tennis world not to rule her out for 2026 season at Cincinnati Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

MASON, Ohio \u2014 The semifinals of the Canadian Open<\/a> are happening on Wednesday, but when a Williams sister is on the grounds of any tennis event in the world with a racket in her hand, that tends to suck up plenty of the oxygen in the sport.<\/p>\n

That was the case at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, as Venus Williams<\/a> prepares for the next stage of her tennis comeback from surgery and chronic illness.<\/p>\n

Williams, 45, won matches in singles and doubles as a wild card at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C.<\/a> last month. She\u2019s playing the Cincinnati Open on another wild card, and has accepted a third to enter the new U.S. Open mixed doubles event<\/a>, where she will partner with Reilly Opelka.<\/p>\n

In a roundtable with reporters, the seven-time Grand Slam singles champion said that will likely be it for her for the 2025 season, barring a wild card into the U.S. Open singles draw, which begins August 24.<\/p>\n

As for 2026?\u00a0 \u201cI don\u2019t think you should ever rule me out,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams, who last month detailed how she managed uterine fibroids for most of her tennis career<\/a>, again discussed the condition in explaining her absence from the sport. Part of her 18-month layoff involved undergoing surgery to remove the noncancerous growths on her uterus, which can cause heavy menstrual bleeding and discomfort. She said she could barely stand up straight as she walked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was thinking of just about recovering from my health, but I think tennis is always in the back of my head, but I felt like I had time, as strange as that sounds,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I had time just to get well and when I was on the court, I was always working on my game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t just go and and let it all fall apart. Even if it was just a half an hour, I just tried to get something out of it. It\u2019s no secret that you get great legs and great arms in tennis, so I figured I may as well at least keep my my figure if that\u2019s the very least we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams has clearly done more than the least. In Washington, D.C., she knocked out Peyton Stearns, the rising American world No. 37 who is about half her age, in the opening round. Magdalena Fr\u0119ch, the No. 5 seed, took her out in the next round.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of the motivation for me is just to come back and try to play in, in the best health that I can,\u201d Williams added.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never stopped hitting the ball even when I was away, not as, you know, intensely as you would if you\u2019re playing tournaments, but I was still going out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams will play again in Ohio against J\u00e9ssica Bouzas Maneiro of Spain, in her first-round Cincinnati Open match on Thursday.<\/p>\n

(Photo: Robert Prange \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MASON, Ohio \u2014 The semifinals of the Canadian Open are happening on Wednesday, but when a Williams sister…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-63387","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\/63387","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=63387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}