{"id":286815,"date":"2025-07-24T02:45:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T02:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286815\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T02:45:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T02:45:14","slug":"cincinnati-open-venus-williams-45-handed-wild-card-as-comeback-gathers-pace-tennis-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286815\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Open: Venus Williams, 45, handed wild-card as comeback gathers pace | Tennis News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venus Williams has been granted a wild-card entry into the main draw of the Cincinnati Open, tournament organizers confirmed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old American is currently competing at the DC Open, her first professional event in over a year.<\/p>\n

Williams defeated world No 35 Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of singles, becoming the second-oldest woman – after Martina Navratilova at 47 – to win a WTA tour singles match.<\/p>\n

The seven-time Grand Slam champion, who also won her opening doubles match in Washington, is scheduled to face Magdalena Frech of Poland in the second round on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Williams, who previously declined a wild-card offer for Indian Wells earlier this year, will feature at the Cincinnati Open, which begins on August 5 – live on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player<\/p>\n

\"Venus<\/p>\n

Venus Williams made a winning return to the sport in the Mubadala Citi DC Open as she and Hailey Baptiste progressed in the Women’s Doubles<\/p>\n

The Cincinnati Open serves as a hard-court warm-up for the US Open, a tournament Williams has won twice in addition to five Wimbledon titles, 14 Grand Slam doubles titles with her sister Serena, and two in mixed doubles.<\/p>\n

American Caty McNally, who took a set off eventual Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek, has also received a wildcard for the event.<\/p>\n

Watch the ATP and WTA Tours, as well as the US Open in New York, live on Sky Sports in 2025 or stream with NOW<\/a> and the Sky Sports app<\/a>, giving Sky Sports customers access to over 50 per cent more live sport this year at no extra cost. Find out more here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Venus Williams has been granted a wild-card entry into the main draw of the Cincinnati Open, tournament organizers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-286815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114905921905055162","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}