“It does not get old,” said Venus Williams last week upon her return to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where she’s been wowing crowds for the better part of three decades; since, bedecked in red, white and blue beads, she went all the way to the final in her 1997 US Open debut.
The same could be said about the ageless Williams herself. Now 45, she’s still at it, her love for her livelihood as strong as it was during that breakout run in Flushing Meadows at the age of 17. For anyone questioning why she hasn’t followed her kid sister, Serena, into retirement, she’s quick to dismiss the notion.
“There’s one thing I know, you’re never too young or too old to win or lose,” said the recently engaged Williams earlier this month at the Cincinnati Open. “Winning and losing knows no age. All that matters for me is that I’m prepared and ready.”
There’s been a whole lot of winning over the years for Williams in New York. Though Serena would strike first, the first of her Open Era-record 23 Grand Slam titles coming here in 1999, Venus would have her day and then some. After consecutive semis in ‘98 and ’99, she would usher in the new century with back-to-back titles in ’00 and ‘01, the second coming at her sister’s expense in the first primetime Saturday night women’s singles final in tournament history; a blockbuster event that drew some 23 million TV viewers and a host of A-list courtsiders like Diana Ross and Spike Lee, who deftly observed of the Williamses: “They got game.”
Williams would capture the appropriately named Venus Rosewater Dish at Wimbledon on five occasions (2000-01, 2005, 2007-08), rise to No. 1 in both singles and doubles, and claim four Olympic gold medals, three of them in doubles alongside Serena. She’s won more than 800 tour-level singles matches, 49 of those coming in finals.
But it’s never really been about the numbers. It’s what this transcendent figure has meant to the sport. Althea Gibson might have been the trailblazer, the barrier-breaker, when it comes to race, but Williams herself proved a pioneer in her own right. With Serena, she shook up a sport that had for far too long been stuck in its staid, country-club roots, furthering the groundwork of names like Garrison and McNeil and Adams and Rubin, and setting the stage for the likes of Stephens and Gauff and Baptiste and Parks.
“They’re the reason why I have this trophy today,” said Coco Gauff, a shoutout to Venus and Serena upon seizing her first major singles title at the 2023 US Open. “They have allowed me to believe in this dream growing up. There weren’t too many Black tennis players dominating the sport. It was just them that I can remember. All the things that they had to go through, they made it easier for someone like me to do this.”
Venus has carried on Billie Jean King’s mission, too, playing a pivotal role in the push for equal pay. And she inspired her sister to no end.
“I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus,” she said during her final tournament, the 2022 US Open. “She’s the only reason that Serena Williams ever existed.”
The losses have come more frequently than the wins these last few years in Flushing Meadows. Williams hasn’t ventured beyond the opening round since 2019, her latest defeat coming on Monday night against 11th seed Karolina Muchova in Arthur Ashe Stadium, the 24,000-seat centerpiece for the sport, a facility she helped christen when its doors first opened to the public back in ’97.
But don’t waste your time wondering when the future International Tennis Hall of Famer is going to hang ‘em up. In its simplest form, tennis is about cleanly striking a ball over a net, again and again. For Venus Ebony Starr Williams, currently ranked No. 597, in love with the game as much as ever, that simple act will never get old—regardless of the wins and losses.
“I think I’ll always play tennis. It’s in my DNA,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s now or 30 years from now; God willing, I’ll be here. Tennis will always be one of the most important parts of my life.”
