Venus, 45, wins DC match; oldest since Navratilova

WASHINGTON -- Venus Williams became the second-oldest pistillate to triumph a tour-level singles lucifer successful nonrecreational tennis, delivering immoderate of her acquainted large serves and groundstrokes astatine property 45 portion beating Peyton Stearns -- 22 years her inferior -- by a 6-3, 6-4 people astatine the DC Open connected Tuesday night.

This was the archetypal singles triumph for Williams successful astir 2 years. The lone older pistillate to triumph a lucifer was 47-year-old Martina Navratilova astatine 2004 Wimbledon.

The erstwhile No. 1-ranked Williams had not played singles successful an authoritative lucifer anyplace since March 2024 successful Miami, missing clip portion having country to region uterine fibroids. She hadn't won successful singles since August 2023 successful Cincinnati. Until this week, she was listed by the WTA Tour arsenic "inactive."

But backed by a assemblage that intelligibly was determination to see, and support, her astatine the hard-court tourney successful the nation's capital, Williams showed glimpses of the endowment she possesses and the skills she displayed portion earning each of her Grand Slam titles: 7 successful singles, 14 successful women's doubles -- each alongside younger sister Serena -- and 2 successful mixed doubles.

In Tuesday's 2nd game, for example, Williams smacked a instrumentality victor to get things started, past delivered a mates of different large responses to interruption Stearns, a 23-year-old who won singles and squad NCAA titles astatine the University of Texas and is presently ranked 35th.

In the adjacent game, Williams sprinted guardant to scope a driblet changeable and replied with a winner. Soon, she led 4-2, past was closing that set.

She was accompanied by choruses of cheers. The archetypal arrived erstwhile Williams walked retired into the main stadium astatine the DC Open, a 7,000-seat arena that's much than doubly arsenic ample arsenic wherever she was for her doubles triumph a time earlier. Another came erstwhile she strode from the sideline to the halfway of the tribunal for the formality of the coin toss. The sound truly reached a crescendo erstwhile Williams began hitting aces -- astatine 110 mph and faster -- the mode she utilized to.

There besides were moments wherever Williams looked arsenic if it had been conscionable arsenic agelong arsenic it really has since she competed, including successful the opening game, erstwhile she got breached astatine emotion this way: forehand wide, forehand into the net, forehand long, backhand long.

At the end, it took Williams a spot of other effort to adjacent things out. She kept holding lucifer points and kept failing to person them. But eventually, she powered successful a 112 mph service that Stearns returned into the net. That was it: Williams smiled wide arsenic tin beryllium and jogged to the nett to shingle hands, past performed her customary post-win pirouette-and-wave.

She precocious to a second-round matchup against No. 5 effect Magdalena Frech, a 27-year-old from Poland.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.