VEnus Williams will take the court on Monday evening for its record-expanding 25th US Open Singles appearance, the Here we go meme again brought to life, literally as a part of the meadows -iconography as Arthur Ashe Stadium itself. At 45, two years away from her last Grand Slam match and ranked no. 610 in the world, she will be confronted with Karolína Muchová, the Czech 11th Seed and 2023 French Open Runner-Up who has reached the semi-final in New York twice.
If the scale of the task is formidable for her, the symbolism of her presence is also. Williams is the oldest singles competent at the American national championships since Renée Richards 44 years ago. As a 17-year-old in 1997, she made her debut here Ashe was completed and replaced Armstrong as the most important stadium of the tournament and the first non-seed player in the open era to reach the final before he lost Martina Hingis. Twenty -eight years later she returns with her place in history long ago, but her taste for the fight unabated.
She is the winner of Seven Grand Slam Singles – Titels – Five in Wimbledon, two at the US Open – to deal with 14 Doubles -Kronen next to her younger sister. She has been World No 1 in Singles and Doubles, won four Olympic gold medals and brought around $ 43 million in prize money with countless lake from notes and external efforts. Given her ridiculous lifespan and pan-cultural resonance, it would not be hyperbolic to call her one of the five most famous active athletes in the world. Nothing more to prove Came and went somewhere during the George W Bush years.
Yet she is here again, after an interruption of 16 months with an operation for womb fibromas and long spells of doubt. She opened back in July in the Washington, where she pulled overflow, including inclusive NBA -star Kevin Durant And Peyton Stearns, the World No. 35. It offered a flicker of the old fire, a memory that has her classic first-trike-game big, flat discs, aggression in all-Court-never teeth.
Outside the field, the comeback fell together with a new chapter in her personal life. Williams confirmed last month that she was engaged to the Italian actor producer Andrea Preti and credited him by encouraging her by the grind of training and recovery. “My fiancé is here and he really encouraged me to keep playing,” she said after the victory over Stearns, which made her the oldest player to win a singles match at tour level, because Martina Navratilova in 2004. “There was so often where I just wanted to unpack and a little bit.
The couple had kept their relationship largely private, but their public performances together – from sailing on the Amalfi Coast to Milan Fashion Week earlier this year – added a different kind of spotlight to the return of Williams. For a player who once skillfully established volleye questions about the establishment, it has marked a tone shift.
For a large part of the past two years, many assumed that Venus had quiet from the Tour. Serena’s controversial farewell in Vogue in 2022, followed by the outputs of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova, the book rod of an era seemed. But Venus, despite last month, despite the fact that she would only come back to tennis That story has never embraced for health insurance. “I think I’ll always play tennis,” she said on Saturday. “It is in my DNA. So it doesn’t matter if it’s now 30 years from now on … Tennis will always be one of the most important parts of my life.”
Even according to the standards of Sport’s Greatest Methuselahs – think of Jaromir Jagr, Bernard Hopkins, Tom Brady – Williams is built differently. None of the 609 players above her in the ranking has reached the 40s so far, much less 45. And only a small group of them even lived when Williams made her professional debut in the Bank of the West Classic in 1994, when Pulp Fiction was in theaters and Boyz II men ruled the American charts.
That feeling of sustainability helps explain why it continues. “I didn’t think about what people would take away,” she said. “I just think about what I would get from it.”
She has earned more than justice. Since she burst through the gates of a lily-white sport alongside her sister, Williams has worn the twin tax of racism and sexism with infallible grace. She led the campaign for the same prize money at Wimbledon and Roland Garros. She inspired a generation of black American players, including Coco Gauff, Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend and Hailey Baptiste.
Her presence this week also coincides with the 75th anniversary of the debut of Althea Gibson on the US National Championships, another memory of the origin she expands. “Althea has achieved so much, and much of them has not received the credit it deserves,” said Williams. “The most important part is just light on it and acknowledge that.”
Peers have quickly emphasized its broader interest in recent days. “She is one of the best athletes of all time,” said Frances Tiafoe. “Her and her sister, they are not only great for the women’s game, not only great for women’s sports, but they are so iconic.” Naomi Osaka added: “I don’t really like how each head mentions her age … It is more the wider meaning, how much of a legend she is.”
It is easy to romantize her return, but the margins are ruthless. Since it was unlikely to reach the Australian Open and Wimbledon Finals in 2017, and then recovered as a competition in the top 10 of the WTA during her age-38 season, its activity and results are reduced. She has not won a competition at the US Open since 2019. Wildcard invitations in the main drawing, including the person who brought her here, inevitably causes debate about whether they should go to younger players. And her opponent Muchová, with her variety and intelligence with making shot, is exactly the kind of player that rusts. To be honest, a victory would be eligible as a big upset.
Williams is realistic about those interests, but her humor stays just as sharp As her sense of fashion. “Take it too fast, it goes out,” she said when he was asked to judge her current form. “So I’m going to try to hit less hard, so it’s going in. But the good news is that I have fun to control the points. It’s a great game style for me.”
Under the fervent defenders of Usta’s decision to grant Williams a joker sign, the retired American star Andy Roddick, who brought the critics to the task after the draw on Friday was revealed.
“I don’t care if she’s going out and doesn’t win any game, we must be grateful because we had Venus Williams in our game”, the US Open Champion 2003 said on his podcast. ‘[The critics say] They take it away from someone who deserves it. If you earn it, you don’t need a joker sign. Simply put, you have qualified on your own ranking.
“It’s not right, it’s a gift. You tell me like a tennis tournament, that Venus Williams does not deserve as a gift from the US Open? Silence, go away here. She has been a gift for us, it’s not the other way around.”
As a transfer from a PlayStation era in a PS5 world, the explained goals of Williams are less about winning Majors than about process, self-confidence and the sensation of competing. “I want to be my best, and that is the expectation I have for myself,” she said. “I didn’t play as much as the other players, so it’s a different challenge. I just try to have fun, stay relaxed and be my personal best.”
Those sentiments repeated her comments from DC last month: “There are no limits for excellence. It is all about what is in your head and how much you can put in it. If you do the work mentally, physically and emotionally, you can have the result.
Whether this is her farewell to flushing meadows or just another chapter in her long farewell, Williams is not interested in writing ahead. She will not follow it in a shiny magazine, nor invite anyone else to interpret it for her. When time comes, she can just slide through the side door, like Another icon in New York: Excuse me while I disappear.
For now she has at least one night on Ashe, another chance to swing freely under the lights of the largest stage of her sport. “Super exciting to be back,” she said. “It’s not getting old. It just gets more exciting.”
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