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WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sunday was all rather surreal for Venus Williams at the Mubadala Citi DC Open – both on court and off.
Except, of course, nothing is normal about her playing this event, for which she received a wild card into both the singles and the doubles (with local heroine Hailey Baptiste).
But the fans are going to love to see her in D.C. She seems happy to be here.
The only big question will be if she can be competitive on the court.
Williams, who is now 45 years old, arrived with a full entourage in tow for her first match in 16 months. And by full, we mean full.
A coach. Not one, but two hitting partners. A physical trainer. Probably someone videoing for content (although it was hard to tell for sure, as there were some tournament media around).
And, most notably, a man that no one in the subsequent press conference asked her about.
But the fact that he was dutifully drying the sweat off her back on a regular basis would tell you that he was Andrea Preti – according to reports, her fiancé.
And the massive rock on her hand would confirm that.
Preti is reportedly 36, and a model/actor/producer type. The two met just over a year ago. People Magazine reports she was wearing the ring as early as February of this year. So that would qualify as a whirlwind romance.
One report has them marrying in September on the Amalfi Coast, though it wasn’t able to get confirmation from her reps. In early July, it was reported she had a bachelorette party on a yacht on the Adriatic. So she wasn’t training much for this event.
Williams practiced for about an hour and 15 minutes or so on Sunday, until Corentin Moutet came to kick her off the stadium court. At 8 a.m. sharp.
Of course, Open Court was there.
Here’s what it looked like.
She hasn’t played a match since losing in the first round of the Miami Open to Diana Shnaider, in March of 2024. If any of you saw that one – 6-1, 6-1 to Shnaider – there was pathos in the effort. Because she just couldn’t move.
It’s not just the 16 months away; it’s the years away.
Williams played two matches in 2024 (in Indian Wells and Miami).
She played 10 in 2023, winning three. She played four in 2022, losing all of them and 12 in 2021, winning three. In 2020, she played nine, winning one (she beat Victoria Azarenka at a small, one-off event in Lexington, Kentucky – the first match after the five-month pandemic stoppage. She lost to sister Serena 6-4 in the third set in the next round).
Her last full season was in 2019 – six years ago.
That hasn’t diminished her competitive jones a bit. There was even a fist pump – in practice – when she hit a winning backhand down the line. And annoyance when she missed easy shots.
That said, it was hard to tell how much she could move. The hitting partners were, to be kind, pretty sub-par and she earned a lot of points on them missing shots early in rallies, or double-faulting.
We’ll just leave the video here so you can perform your own technical analysis.
First, let’s just say that we LOVE the fact that Williams summoned the press at 9:45 a.m., following her practice. There was no other reason to be there before noon. People got up.
Beyond that, she was nearly an hour late.
Williams has been a challenge with the media much of her career – and we’re not criticizing her for that. Some of the media have been flat-out heinously horrible to both her and her sister. It’s no wonder she despises the entire process.
But on this way, it was ALL charm. And why shouldn’t it be? There are plenty of reasons she’s here in D.C. And one of them is brand-building for the rest of her post-tennis life.
She looked great. She sounded happy. There were no two-word answers. It was lovely to see.
Of course, there were nothing but gushing, softball questions (and none, interestingly, about the purported fiancé, who was sitting right there).
But it was a bit surreal.
People were acting – and Williams was talking – as though she’d been off the WTA Tour this long simply because of injury. Like she’s just a regular player coming back from an injury layoff who is convinced all she has to do is play matches to get her game back.
Of course, that’s not what’s happening. Williams is 45; she’s not in great physical condition. Even Superwoman would struggle against women half her age. And there doesn’t seem to be any actual plan for a tennis comeback.
But everyone was sort of … ignoring the elephant in the room. Out of respect, you’d suppose. And that’s fair enough.
Here’s what it looked and sounded like.
Williams’s first match will be on Monday, when she’ll team up for doubles with local heroine Hailey Baptiste, who grew up literally down the street from the Rock Creek Tennis Center.
As the draw luck would have it, they will meet another notorious wild card in the first round: Genie Bouchard, who will team with young American Clervie Ngounoue.
The match is scheduled on the second-biggest court, John Harris. And we’d recommend getting there early to get a seat. The Citi Open always has great crowds for doubles and with these two on court, it will suck up a lot of oxygen.
Unfortunately, as it happens, it may well be played at the same time as another high-profile doubles match, as Nick Kyrgios teams up with Gaël Monfils on the Grandstand (which is even smaller).
On Tuesday, Williams is scheduled to play fellow American Peyton Stearns in her first-round singles match.
Stearns – who is half Williams’ age at 23, is currently ranked No. 35; that’s just below a career high of No. 28 reached last May.
Her favorite surface is hard courts. But at the Italian Open this year, she made it all the way to the semifinals. She defeated Anna Kalinskaya, Madison Keys, Naomi Osaka and Elina Svitolina (the last three in thid-set tiebreaks) before losing to eventual champion Jasmine Paolini.
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