The match was over, the smile was beaming and here was Venus Williams – the seven-time Grand Slam champion, the 45-year-old icon of tennis, the soon-to-be bride – telling jokes about health insurance.
“I had to come back because they informed me earlier this year I’m on COBRA,” she said, giggling through her on-court interview with Rennae Stubbs after a what-did-we-just-watch 6-3, 6-4 victory over world No. 35 Peyton Stearns at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. “So I was like, ‘I gotta get my benefits!’ You guys know what it’s like. I’m always at the doctor so I need this insurance.”
It’s a great line. And the funniest part about it is, when Williams entered this tournament as a wild card having not played on the WTA Tour since March 2024 and without winning an official match in 709 days, there was no clear reason why she would play at all.
Williams admits that she holds her cards close to the vest on purpose. She never officially retired. She never closed the door. In her last few years on tour, the results weren’t good. Injuries piled up, as they tend to do for athletes who approach their 40s.
So was entering this tournament out of nowhere a one-off or a comeback? She wouldn’t say.
Who cares. What she produced was magical, even if it’s just for one memorable night.
“There were so many times I wanted to coast and kind of chill,” Williams said. “Do you know how hard it is to play tennis? You don’t know how much work goes into this. It’s 9-to-5 except you’re running the whole time and then lifting weights and then you’re repeating it the next day.”
But her support team wanted her to play at least one more time. Her fiancé, the Danish-Italian actor Andrea Preti, had never seen her play.
And my goodness did she deliver something special, the kind of thing only tennis can provide.
Williams is not the oldest women’s player to win a match on the WTA Tour. That would be Martina Navratilova winning a first-round match at Wimbledon in 2004. But given how little she had played recently and who she was up against Tuesday – a very good 23-year-old who wasn’t even born when Williams won her fourth major at the 2001 US Open – it’s arguably the most stunning result of the year in any sport.
How did she do it? She served incredibly well with nine aces, executed an incredibly-aggressive game plan that made Stearns uncomfortable and baited her into too many unforced errors.
Is it sustainable? We’ll see. Williams plays the No. 5 seed, Magdalena Frech, on Thursday.
The more important question is whether this win will encourage Williams to keep going and perhaps even request a wild card to the US Open, which would very likely be granted given her stature in the history of the sport.
Had Williams been defeated soundly Tuesday, it might have been controversial to give a 45-year-old a pass into the US Open field. But now, it kind of seems like a no-brainer if that’s what she wants to do.
“I’m just here for now, and who knows?” she said in her pre-tournament press conference. “Maybe there’s more. At the moment, I’m focused just on this. I haven’t played in a year. There is no doubt I can play tennis, but obviously coming back to play matches, it takes time to get in the swing of things. I definitely feel I’ll play well. I’m still the same player. I’m a big hitter. I hit big. This is my brand.”
Everyone got a good laugh out of that, including Williams. But when she got out on the court, it turned out to be true. She hit big enough to knock the No. 35 player in the world off the court. She’s probably not going to contend for another Grand Slam, but if you can do that, you belong.
None of us are truly timeless, but Williams made a heck of an argument in the other direction Tuesday. At 45, she looked as fit and powerful as she had in years. Whether it’s the beginning of something or one last hurrah before the end, the fact she was willing to put herself out there at all was a gift to tennis and fans who have watched her play pro tournaments for 31 years. Even if it’s just for the health insurance, Williams’ presence can still elevate a tennis tournament. And even if Tuesday was the last match she ever wins, delivering that moment was something everybody who cares about the sport should be thankful they got to witness.