{"id":55512,"date":"2026-01-01T21:25:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/venus-williams-gets-wild-card-to-play-first-australian-open-in-5-years\/01\/01\/2026\/"},"modified":"2026-01-01T21:26:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:26:03","slug":"venus-williams-gets-wild-card-to-play-first-australian-open-in-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/venus-williams-gets-wild-card-to-play-first-australian-open-in-5-years\/01\/01\/2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams gets wild card to play first Australian Open in 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>MELBOURNE, Australia &#8212; Seven-time Grand Slam singles champion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=403\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Venus Williams<\/a> received a wild-card entry for the Australian Open beginning Jan. 18.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament announced in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/AustralianOpen\/status\/2006855369419796753\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">social media post Friday<\/a> that the 45-year-old Williams would make a return to Melbourne Park 28 years after her first appearance. In 1998, she defeated her younger sister, Serena, in the second round before losing in the quarterfinals to fellow American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=400\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Lindsay Davenport<\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/47052521\/alcaraz-sinner-keys-sabalenka-top-tennis-players-2025\" class=\"img-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/47435591\/nick-kyrgios-bests-aryna-sabalenka-battle-sexes\" class=\"img-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"><img style=\"display:block\" class=\"lazyload\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=75&resize=75 75w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=100&resize=100 100w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=150&resize=150 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=240&resize=240 240w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=320&resize=320 320w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=500&resize=500 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=640&resize=640 640w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=800&resize=800 800w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=1024&resize=1024 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=1280&resize=1280 1280w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?w=1600&resize=1600 1600w\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>1 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Venus had announced in November that she would play in Auckland, New Zealand at a WTA tournament, where she also received a wild card, two weeks before the Australian Open.<\/p>\n<p>She last appeared in Melbourne in 2021 and has finished runner-up in the women&#8217;s singles twice, losing to Serena in the finals in 2003 and 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m excited to be back in Australia and looking forward to competing during the Australian summer,&#8221; Williams said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve had so many incredible memories there, and I&#8217;m grateful for the opportunity to return to a place that has meant so much to my career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Venus Williams&#8217; record at Melbourne Park is 54 wins and 21 losses. This year will be the 22nd time she has appeared in the main draw.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament said Williams was set to become the oldest woman to compete in an Australian Open main draw, surpassing the record previously held by Japan&#8217;s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she lost in the first round at Melbourne Park in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>In late December, Venus married Danish-born model and actor Andrea Preti at Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/47476570\/venus-williams-wild-card-invite-australian-open\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MELBOURNE, Australia &mdash; Seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Venus Williams received a wild-card entry for the Australian Open beginning Jan. 18. The<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/venus-williams-gets-wild-card-to-play-first-australian-open-in-5-years\/01\/01\/2026\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[1123,3486,725,175,4929,2998,983,533],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/a.espncdn.com\/combiner\/i?img=\/photo\/2025\/1228\/r1594396_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&amp;w=130&amp;h=130&amp;scale=crop&amp;location=center","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55514,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55512\/revisions\/55514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}