Venus Williams, a tennis legend, has made history once again by becoming the second oldest woman to win a singles match in a professional tournament. The 45-year-old tennis player demonstrated her unparalleled talent at the DC Open, defeating Peyton Stearns, 22 years her junior, with a score of 6-3, 6-4.
This victory marks Williams’ triumphant return to the singles circuit, after almost two years of absence. The only older player to achieve a similar feat was Martina Navratilova, who won a match at Wimbledon 2004 at the age of 47.
Williams, former world number one, had not participated in an official singles match since March 2024 in Miami, due to surgery to remove uterine fibroids. Her last singles victory dated back to August 2023 in Cincinnati. The WTA Tour had classified her as “inactive” until this week.
Before an enthusiastic audience that supported her unconditionally in the hard court tournament in the capital, Williams displayed flashes of the talent that has consecrated her, showing the skills that led her to conquer seven Grand Slam titles in singles, 14 in women’s doubles (all with her sister Serena) and two in mixed doubles.Venus Williams desplegó sus característicos saques y golpes potentes, venciendo a Peyton Stearns con un marcador de 6-3, 6-4 en el DC Open, su primera victoria individual en casi dos años.In Tuesday’s second game, Williams started with a winning shot, followed by a couple of powerful responses that allowed her to break the serve of Stearns, 23, who won NCAA singles and team titles at the University of Texas and is currently ranked 35th.
In the following game, Williams ran forward to reach a short shot and responded with a winning shot. Soon, he was leading 4-2 and was close to closing that set.
The public’s support was constant. The ovations began when Williams entered the main stadium of the DC Open, a venue with a capacity of 7,000 spectators. The noise reached its peak when Williams began to connect aces at over 177 km/h, as he used to do.
There were also moments when Williams seemed to feel the time off the court, such as in the first game, where she lost her serve. However, in the end, Williams needed a little more effort to close out the match. After several match points, she finally secured the victory with a serve at 180 km/h that Stearns sent into the net.
Williams advanced to the second round, where she will face the number 5 seed, Magdalena Frech, 27 years old and from Poland.
