{"id":61034,"date":"2026-08-31T10:24:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:24:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/61034\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T10:24:19","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T10:24:19","slug":"venus-williams-bows-out-of-her-26th-us-open-with-a-1st-round-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/61034\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams bows out of her 26th US Open with a 1st-round loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Venus Williams<\/a> bowed out of her 26th U.S. Open singles appearance<\/a> early Monday morning, falling in straight sets to fellow American wild card Sofia Kenin after not getting on the court until midnight.<\/p>\n

The 46-year-old lost 6-2, 7-6 (6) in what could be the final singles match at a Grand Slam, if not her illustrious career. It was Williams\u2019 15th consecutive singles defeat dating to her last victory in Washington in July 2025.<\/p>\n

Williams has now lost six in a row at the U.S. Open since winning in the first round in 2019. With doubles coming up<\/a> later this week with sister Serena, Venus was not ready to contemplate her future in tennis.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I should have to,\u201d Williams told a small group of reporters after the match. \u201cMy mind is fully focused on that: how I recover from this completely insane evening and get ready for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams and her 27-year-old opponent waited extraordinarily long to take the court at Arthur Ashe Stadium, delayed by Novak Djokovic\u2019s 4-hour, 36-minute defeat<\/a> to Mariano Navone that threatened to move them next door to Louis Armstrong Stadium. The men\u2019s action ended just in time to play on Ashe \u2014 but not before making some history.<\/p>\n

At 12:13 a.m., it was the latest start to a match at the U.S. Open, six minutes later than the previous record of Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> against Ekaterina Alexandrova in the round of 32 in 2024. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not ideal,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI would have preferred something else, definitely. It wasn\u2019t great for either of us, so I think we both tried our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenin needed just 32 minutes to win the first set, but Williams took advantage of mistakes and made some shots in the second that gave the late-staying crowd reason to cheer, rallying from down 4-2 to force a tiebreak before losing several set points and striking the ball into the net to end it.<\/p>\n

\u201cVenus obviously was playing some amazing tennis,\u201d Kenin said. \u201cI just tried to keep fighting. I didn\u2019t feel 100% game-wise, some nerves, but I tried to do the best to stay strong in those moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Concluding at 2:01 a.m., it became the latest finish for a first-round match in U.S. Open history. It is the third-latest for a women\u2019s match at any stage of the tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a lot of great moments,\u201d Williams said. \u201cAs the match progressed, I just kept pushing myself to try to find my best tennis and to find my rhythm. It\u2019s not easy to do in the first round. It\u2019s not easy to do at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning to try to find your rhythm and play your best, but I tried my best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Williams is a quarter-century removed from her second of back-to-back championships in New York. She also won Wimbledon five times from 2000-08 to give her seven Grand Slam singles titles. <\/p>\n

She attempted to enjoy the experience Sunday night into Monday as much as possible, though she was mostly worried about her on-court play.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always try to appreciate it, but it is definitely all business and there\u2019s no room for error,\u201d Williams said. \u201cTry to soak it in, and soaking it in is more fun when the ball\u2019s going in.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Venus Williams bowed out of her 26th U.S. Open singles appearance early Monday morning,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[217,190,18408,23445,5229,11422,1301,1510,5991,84,2034,139,1915,50,28,1646,463,747],"class_list":["post-61034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-california","tag-connecticut","tag-ct-state-wire","tag-ekaterina-alexandrova","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-mariano-navone","tag-new-jersey","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sofia-kenin","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-us-open","tag-venus-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}