Venus Wiliams has announced that she plans to make another tennis comeback at the age of 43. The veteran has played sparingly over the last few years due to injury and was limited to just 10 matches in 2023.
The seven-time major winner is deep into the twilight phase of her illustrious career and her passion for the game still burns bright, to the extent she plans to continue playing in 2024. Williams is set to miss the January 2024 Australian Open but has pinpointed the US events of Indian Wells and the Miami Open in March for her return to the court.
“I am targeting March, that’s when the tournaments go back to the States, so my goal is to be up and running when tournaments come back to the US,” she said. “I tried my best to recover for the US Open. I did not reach my form so now I am just resting until I get back.”
The former World No. 1 uploaded a video to her YouTube channel updating fans on the tumultuous year she has had. After six months out, she returned to action on the grass courts at the Libema Open in June, beating Camila Giorgi in a classic match at the Birmingham Open before losing to Jelena Ostapenko.
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Her stay at Wimbledon was a short one as she succumbed to Elina Svitlona in the first round, and appeared to slip and injure her knee during the contest. Venus recovered and played at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open a month later, but decided to end her season after a heavy defeat to qualifier Greet Minnen in the first round of the US Open.
Reviewing her summer, Williams said: “I went to Wimbledon and sadly slipped in the third game of the match and really got injured. I spent the whole summer pretty injured with my knee, like really struggling with it.
“I didn’t want to miss the US Open, made it there, but definitely not my best performance after so much time off after Wimbledon. So, I decided not to play anymore the rest of the year and just give my knee a chance to heal.
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“What was super interesting is once I just sat down, I felt better, I would say. After the US Open, I would say maybe like four weeks later I got up, I remember it was a Sunday and I got up and I was like ‘Oh my God! I’m not in pain’.
“Just like pain from sitting around, like my knee hurts, my knee is swelling every day. It’s very difficult to play tennis or any sport when you have like the swelling cycle when your body won’t stop swelling.”
The tennis icon said she struggled to get the swelling down which caused her to lose range of motion, which left her unable to train. But Williams is now progressing well and in 2024 she will register her 30th year as a tennis professional.
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