Before her Tuesday’s opponent was even born, 45-year-old Venus Williams had already won multiple Grand Slam titles. Now, she has earned her first singles victory in nearly two years with a 6-3 6-4 win over 35th-ranked Peyton Stearns, 22 years her junior, at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. With this triumph, she became the second-oldest woman ever to win a tour-level singles match—behind only Martina Navratilova, who accomplished the feat at Wimbledon in 2004 at age 47.
Wow. Wow. WOW!
45 year old Legend Venus Williams, playing her first singles match since march 2024, defeats world #35 Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 to reach the 2nd round in Washington WTA 500.
Hit 9 aces.
That’s her first singles win since august 2023.
Simply UNREAL. pic.twitter.com/EeAVJ4l4PO
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) July 23, 2025
Williams hadn’t played a singles match since March 2024, when she competed at the Miami Open, and her last singles victory dated back to August 2023 in Cincinnati.
In the lead-up to her return, Williams experienced a rollercoaster of emotions during training. Some weeks she doubted herself entirely, unsure if she was ready to compete again. Other times, she felt like she was making real progress. Even in the final days before the WTA 500 tournament, she questioned whether she had improved enough. For her, the entire process was as much a mental battle as a physical one.
With her fiancé Andrea Preti cheering from the stands, the crowd erupted the moment Williams stepped into the main stadium at the DC Open—a 7,000-seat arena, more than twice the size of the court where she had secured a women’s doubles win just a day earlier.
Keep in mind, Williams had won four major singles titles before Stearns was even born. Her opponent, a former NCAA champion, admitted she was impressed: “She played some ball tonight. She was moving really well, which I wasn’t expecting too much, honestly. Her serves were just on fire.”
Of course, there were rough patches. Venus opened the match by dropping her serve at love, mishitting several shots. And closing out the win took effort—she held five match points without converting before finally sealing it with a blistering serve that Stearns couldn’t return.
Williams, who has seven Grand Slam singles titles, 14 in women’s doubles with her sister Serena, and two in mixed doubles, remains focused on health. “I’m just constantly praying for good health, so that way I could have an opportunity to play with good health,” she said.
Next up, she’ll face 27-year-old Magdalena Frech, the tournament’s No. 5 seed. (source: ESPN)
