A landmark wild card, a fresh test in Cincinnati
Venus Williams is headed to the Cincinnati Open with a wild card in hand and momentum on her side. The 45-year-old secured her spot on July 23, 2025, days after a sharp return at the DC Open where she won first-round matches in both singles and doubles—her first event back after more than a year away.
The win that turned heads came against 23-year-old Peyton Stearns, a straight-sets 6-3, 6-4 performance built on clean first-strike tennis and a serve that still bites. That result put Williams in rare air: she is now the second-oldest woman ever to win a tour-level singles match, trailing only Martina Navratilova, who notched her last singles victory at 47 in 2004. It’s not nostalgia. It’s execution under pressure against a player half her age.
Stearns, who has been climbing the rankings with a heavy forehand and a fearless game, didn’t hide her admiration afterward. She said Williams’ serve was “on fire” and called her comeback gutsy. That praise wasn’t performative. Players who share a locker room know how much fortitude it takes to put yourself on court after injuries, illness, and long layoffs. Williams earned that respect the hard way.
Next up in Washington, Williams ran into Poland’s Magdalena Frech, a solid counterpuncher who makes you hit extra balls and exposes any rust. That match was another measure of where Williams stands. Wins in week one are nice; backing them up matters even more. Cincinnati, a weeklong grind on hot hard courts, will reveal the base she’s built.
The Cincinnati Open, a WTA 1000 and one of the key US Open Series stops, starts August 5. Its pace and summer humidity test legs and lungs. If your serve and first ball land well, you can control points. If they don’t, rallies stretch and fatigue creeps in. For Williams, whose game has always leaned on a heavy first serve and early aggression, the conditions can help—if she keeps her timing and footwork clean.
She won’t be the only American storyline in the draw. Caty McNally, the Cincinnati native who was the only player to take a set off champion Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon, also received a wild card. Local energy tends to follow McNally around these courts. That matters in Cincinnati, where crowds lean into big moments, and a home player can turn a tight set into a surge.
Williams’ wild card is part ranking, part respect, and part business reality. Tournaments use them to balance competitive fields with star power and to give proven champions a runway. Her current ranking sits outside the direct-entry cutoff, but her résumé—seven Grand Slam singles titles, five at Wimbledon and two at the US Open—speaks louder than a number next to her name. You don’t ignore a champion who can still hold serve at 120 mph and change the tempo of a match with one clean return.
Her doubles history is just as towering: 14 women’s majors alongside her sister Serena, plus two mixed doubles titles. Add in her Olympic haul and a generation-shaping presence, and the choice looks simple. Fans want to see her. Younger players want to test themselves against her. The tour benefits when one of its defining figures is in the mix.
Context matters here because the road back hasn’t been smooth. Williams was diagnosed with Sjögren’s syndrome in 2011, an autoimmune condition that can cause fatigue, joint pain, and dryness—tough symptoms for any athlete, cruel ones for a professional tennis player. She also dealt with uterine fibroids that required surgery. Even for someone who has built a career on resilience, those battles change how you train, travel, and compete. They force choices: shorter schedules, more careful recovery, constant tweaks to nutrition and rehab.
That’s why the DC Open mattered. It showed not just that she can still strike the ball, but that she can manage a match, hold focus, and string together points at key moments. The serve won her free points. The backhand held up under pressure. The movement—often the first thing to go as players age—looked functional and smart, built around patterns that avoid needless sprints.
Age in tennis is not what it used to be. Martina Navratilova won singles matches at 47. Kimiko Date-Krumm was beating top-20 players in her early 40s. But the women who hang around at this level do it with careful planning, targeted scheduling, and styles that never asked their bodies to do more than necessary. Williams fits that group now. She picks her spots. She builds toward specific events. Cincinnati is a tune-up with a purpose.
That purpose is New York. Williams has already received a wild card for the 2025 US Open singles draw, her 25th main-draw appearance at the tournament and her first since her latest layoff. She won back-to-back titles there in 2000 and 2001, in the throes of a serve-and-first-strike era that she, in many ways, helped create. When she steps onto Arthur Ashe Stadium later this summer, she’ll be the oldest singles competitor at the US Open since 1981. A full Ashe night session, with the roof shut and the crowd close, is still a place where she can feed off a surge.
So what does a successful Cincinnati look like for her? It’s not just wins. It’s match hours, enough to test the legs without emptying the tank. It’s second-serve points held above 50%, a first-serve percentage near 60%, and return games where she gets at least one look at a break every set. It’s a clean tally: more winners than unforced errors, steady first-strike patterns, and quick holds that keep the scoreboard friendly.
The draw will shape the test. Cincinnati is loaded with top-10 players who won’t give her rhythm and younger hitters who take big cuts on second serve returns. Three things will matter most: landing first serves, getting low on backhand returns to absorb pace, and protecting the body between matches. She won’t out-run the field. She can still out-hit it for stretches.
There’s also the intangible she’s carried for two decades: presence. Some players tighten up when they see her across the net. That buys free errors and cautious choices, especially in early rounds. The flip side is risk-takers who swing even bigger to make a statement. Williams has seen both a thousand times. The veterans’ trick is the same as ever—make that extra ball, then make them doubt the next one.
Her return is not just a sports story, either. Williams fought for equal prize money at Wimbledon and Roland Garros when that fight felt uphill. She used press rooms and private meetings, and she didn’t stop until the majors matched purses. Players cash equal checks today in part because she kept pushing. That’s bigger than rankings or even titles.
Health remains the variable. Sjögren’s can flare unpredictably. Travel adds stress. Hydration and recovery plans are non-negotiable in summer heat. In Washington, her team kept things tight—controlled practice windows, purposeful hitting sessions, a lot of stretching and treatment. Expect the same in Ohio. Off-days will be as important as match days.
From a coaching standpoint, the plan looks straightforward: compress the court, take returns early, serve wide on big points, and use the down-the-line backhand to stop opponents from camping on the ad-court crosscourt. Rally discipline matters, but shot tolerance within her terms matters more. When she steps inside the baseline, the ball still jumps off her strings like it used to.
What about expectations? They’re always loud when a legend plays. The realistic approach is to judge the process: if she holds serve regularly, defends with shape rather than sprints, and keeps matches on her racquet, the outcomes will follow. Even two or three good matches in Cincinnati would be worth a lot in confidence. Form is fragile when you’ve been away. Rhythm is a reward.
There’s a broader tour angle here, too. Wild cards for veterans do more than sell tickets. They keep the sport’s history visible on center court for the next wave to see up close. Players like Stearns take notes from those nights—how to handle a big crowd, how to manage a tight set, how to shift a pattern mid-game. That learning curve shortens when you face someone who’s been in every kind of match.
For Cincinnati, the timing is perfect. The event sits at the heart of the US Open Series, a bridge between summer grass hangovers and New York noise. Hard courts in Ohio play honest: if you strike clean and serve well, you’re rewarded. If you’re late or cautious, the scoreboard tells on you fast. That’s why the tournament has a knack for revealing who’s ready for Flushing Meadows and who needs another week.
Williams’ own Cincinnati history has been stop-start over the years, with injuries sometimes blunting her runs. This time the goals are narrower and smarter: gather match fitness, trust the patterns that work, and avoid long three-set slogs when possible. If the draw opens even a little, a couple of wins are on the table. And if it doesn’t, a solid week still sends her to New York with a clearer picture of what’s there and what isn’t yet.
As for the mood around her, it’s lighter than you might expect for someone carrying this many miles. She’s been honest about the hard bits—recovery, setbacks, the patience it takes to feel sharp again. But she still talks about the good stuff: the jolt of a clean ace out wide, the chess of a return game, the ritual of walking through a tunnel toward a loud stadium. That’s why fans keep showing up for her. You can see the craft. You can also see the joy.
On paper, Cincinnati is a stepping stone. In reality, it’s another check on a long list of boxes that get her ready for a main stage she knows as well as anyone. The wild card is her entry. What she does with the chance is up to familiar strengths: the serve, the first strike, the nerve on the biggest points—and a belief that, even at 45, there are still matches to be won.
