{"id":13476,"date":"2026-01-18T15:56:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T15:56:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13476"},"modified":"2026-01-18T15:56:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T15:56:14","slug":"australian-open-2026-venus-williams-record-breaking-day-ends-in-close-first-round-defeat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/?p=13476","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026: Venus Williams&#8217; record-breaking day ends in close first-round defeat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams had not played for more than a year when she returned to WTA Tour action at the Washington Open in July 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/c4g8nzzze1mo\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">beat fellow American Peyton Stearns<\/a> in her opening match of that event but has lost her subsequent six matches at tour level.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">That run includes first-round losses at the US Open and the Australian Open after being granted wildcards. She competed well in both encounters but lost both in deciding sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live&#8217;s daily podcast from the Australian Open, former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash said he thought Williams&#8217; status in the sport means she should be considered for wildcards at future Grand Slam tournaments such as this summer&#8217;s Wimbledon &#8211; but only if her form and results are deserving of them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Venus hasn&#8217;t played a lot of tennis, she&#8217;s won something like three matches in three years,&#8221; said Cash.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She certainly deserves a wildcard if she&#8217;s in some form and she plays, because she&#8217;s a superstar. She&#8217;s one of the greatest tennis players we&#8217;ve ever seen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A lot of Australians are saying &#8216;we have got to give them [wildcards] to young players, why do we need to give it to Venus, she&#8217;s got to prove herself&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She played a good US summer and she was playing good tennis. I&#8217;m not sure if she ran out of gas but it would appear so, [being] short on match play at 4-0 up then losing the next six games. But it&#8217;s just shown that she can still play tennis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Going forward, Wimbledon would be great for her to play at again [but] I don&#8217;t think the All England Club should just be handing her a wildcard because she&#8217;s Venus Williams. I think she&#8217;s got to prove herself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;She says she&#8217;s committed to playing more tournaments and that&#8217;s a great sign because she&#8217;s just short on matches.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/tennis\/articles\/c5y503l49gvo?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Williams had not played for mo&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[251],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13476"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}