Even at age 45, even after two years away from Grand Slam tennis, Venus Williams displayed some big serves and powerful groundstrokes at the US Open on Monday night, August 25, in front of a supportive crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, before losing 6-3, 2-6, 6-1 to Karolina Muchova.
Williams was the oldest singles player at the hard-court tournament since Renee Richards was 47 in 1981. “She’s such a legend of our sport,” 2023 French Open runner-up Muchova said about seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Williams, adding that it was an honor “to share a court with her.”
In just the fourth match of a comeback that began last month after more than a year off the tour, Williams didn’t exactly get to ease into things Monday: Muchova, a 29-year-old from the Czech Republic, was seeded 11th in New York and made it to the semifinals there in both 2023 – when she lost to eventual champion Coco Gauff in a match interrupted by a climate protest – and 2024.
So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that Williams started slowly, ceding 11 of the initial 13 points and falling behind 2-0. With members of the crowd shouting, “Let’s go, Venus!” and roaring after her winners – and her fiance, Andrea Preti, leaping out of his seat – Williams took three games in a row to go ahead 3-2
Muchova grabbed the next four games to claim that set, which ended with Williams hitting four of her evening’s 10 double-faults to get broken. But Williams, who smacked serves at up to 114 mph and finished with just one fewer winner than Muchova, broke to begin the second set on her way to tying the match.
In the third set, though, as the contest reached two hours, Muchova was simply too good. When the match ended, Williams left the court with a wave as fans rose to salute someone whose first US Open title arrived a full quarter of a century ago.
The US Tennis Association awarded wild cards to Williams for both the mixed doubles event last week and singles. She hasn’t won a match at the US Open in singles since 2019, when she got to the second round. Since then, Williams exited in the first round in 2020, 2022 and 2023, and missed the tournament in 2021 and 2024. She won singles championships at Flushing Meadows in 2000 and 2001, and another five at Wimbledon.
Since making her professional debut in 1994, Williams also collected 14 Grand Slam trophies in women’s doubles alongside her younger sister, Serena , plus two in mixed doubles, earned a record five Olympic tennis medals and reached No. 1 in the WTA rankings.
Kvitova’s final postmatch news conference
Petra Kvitova looked to her right as she sat down in the US Open’s main interview room for her final postmatch news conference as a professional tennis player Monday, and the two-time Wimbledon champion saw what she was hoping for. “Tissues are here. Very good,” Kvitova said. “I’ll try to be brave.”
While speaking to reporters following a 6-1, 6-0 loss to Diane Perry in the first round at Flushing Meadows, the last tournament for Kvitova before retirement, the 35-year-old left-hander was in a good mood, smiling or laughing at some of her own answers. The tears she shed on court right after the 52-minute defeat were no longer flowing.
Kvitova, who said she came down with a case of Covid-19 a few weeks ago and considered pulling out of the US Open, hadn’t expected to be so emotional on Monday. “But since I woke up this morning, I felt it. I was really nervous. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t swing, I couldn’t do anything,” she explained. “It was really difficult … knowing I’m playing my last match, most probably.”
After it ended when she sent a backhand return wide, Kvitova began crying. She went over to the stands for a hug and a kiss from her husband, Jiri Vanek, who is also her coach. They became parents in July 2024, when their son, Petr, was born, and Kvitova returned to the tour this season after a 17-month break. She announced earlier this year that she would stop playing after the US Open.
Garcia ‘at peace’ with her decision
So had another tour veteran, 31-year-old Caroline Garcia of France, who also headed to retirement Monday after losing 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to Kamilla Rakhimova. “Obviously, you can always achieve more, and I was dreaming of achieving more,” said Garcia, a 2022 semifinalist in New York. “But I’m very happy and at peace with my decision to move forward with my life and close the chapter of being a tennis player.”
Kvitova won Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2011, defeating Maria Sharapova in the final, and 2014, with a victory over Eugenie Bouchard. She also was the runner-up to Naomi Osaka at the 2019 Australian Open and was ranked as high as No. 2.
In December 2016, she was stabbed at her home by a knife-wielding intruder. Kvitova needed hours of surgery to repair nerves and tendons in her racket-holding left hand.
Kvitova returned to competition less than six months later at the French Open, where she won her first match back. “I would be proudest of many things. I think, especially … the mental side,” she said. “All the seasons … I was quite OK to handle it, even with some injuries and sickness and kind of this stuff. I’m very proud of how I handled the pressure, how many times I have been in the top 10. It was very, very special for me.”
