Venus Williams turned again the clock in dramatic vogue on the DC Open on Tuesday evening, defeating 23-year-old Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 to develop into the second-oldest girl in historical past to win a tour-level singles match.Go Past The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!At 45, Williams trails solely Martina Navratilova, who received a match at 47 in 2004, within the report books. This was her first singles victory in almost two years, and her first official match win since August 2023 in Cincinnati.The previous world No. 1 had not performed singles since March 2024, taking day without work for surgical procedure to take away uterine fibroids. Till this week, the WTA had her listed as “inactive.” However below the lights within the U.S. capital, backed by a roaring crowd, Williams reminded the tennis world of her championship pedigree.
She opened with a break of serve, hammering a return winner and sprinting ahead for drop-shot replies. Her highly effective groundstrokes and signature aces — clocked at 110+ mph — introduced the stadium to its ft. The match ended with a 112 mph serve that Stearns returned into the online, sealing a landmark win.Regardless of some rust, together with a shaky opening recreation the place she was damaged at love, Williams battled by way of missed match factors earlier than lastly closing it out — smiling huge and celebrating together with her trademark pirouette.
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The seven-time Grand Slam singles champion will now face Poland’s Magdalena Frech, the No. 5 seed, within the second spherical.Elsewhere, Emma Raducanu ousted seventh seed Marta Kostyuk 7-6(4), 6-4 to arrange a blockbuster conflict with Naomi Osaka, who beat Yulia Putintseva 6-2, 7-5. In males’s motion, Cam Norrie upset No. 2 seed Lorenzo Musetti, and Ben Shelton superior. No. 3 Holger Rune withdrew as a result of a again harm.
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