“Still haven’t seen the Rolling Stones,” says Venus Williams, smiling, as she reminisced about her unforgettable professional tennis debut at the age of 14 in Oakland, California, an occasion that justified years of hype surrounding her stratospheric potential. Her first ever professional tennis match took place next door to a Rolling Stones concert. Now, 31 years later, at 45 years old, Williams is still here.
Three weeks after returning to professional tennis for the first time in 16 months with a straight sets singles victory over the then world No 35 Peyton Stearns at the Citi Open in Washington, which marked her as the second-oldest woman in history to win a WTA Tour-level singles match and also silenced criticisms about her enduring presence on the tour, Williams now takes her comeback to the Cincinnati Open.
Once one of the most precocious youngsters of her time, a US Open finalist by the age of 17, Williams continues to compete. She is one of the greatest tennis players of all time in her own right, a seven-time singles grand slam champion, Olympic gold medallist and former No 1 in singles. Despite all she has achieved, her enduring love for her sport means she continues to step on the practice court every day with the aim of being the best player she can be.
“Love is the key, right?” says Williams. “If you don’t love it, then get out of it. If you can, if you have that luxury, not everyone has that luxury. For me, I think a lot of the motivation for me is just to come back and try to play in the best health that I can. I never stopped hitting the ball, even when I was away, not as intensely as you would if you were playing tournaments, but I was still going out there. And I think that at the end of the day, you have to live your life on your own terms. Your terms should be yours. Doesn’t matter what anyone else says or what anyone else thinks, if you get to live life on your own terms of life, [do] that. And I firmly believe in that.”
This comeback, however, is not merely about striking a tennis ball. Last month, Williams revealed she has suffered with fibroids for years, non-cancerous tumours that develop in and around the uterus, which left her with excruciating symptoms including pelvic pain and heavy bleeding. In addition to the significant impact fibroids has had on Williams’ everyday life, it also affected her tennis career. She says she had been misdiagnosed for years.
Last week, in the aftermath of her returning in Washington, Williams posted a series of videos from exactly a year ago when she was undergoing an open myomectomy surgery to remove the fibroids and a large focal adenomyoma in her uterus, tissue from the lining of the uterus that had grown in her uterine wall: “I was told I was inoperable,” she wrote. “I was told I could bleed to death on the table. I was told to get a surrogate and forget the hope to carry my own children. I was misdiagnosed. I went untreated for years and years and years.”
As she has returned to the court, Williams has used the publicity around her return to shine a light on women’s medical issues. “I just remember after my surgery, I was feeling so much gratitude but I was able to have the resources to finally get through that, and I remember that was the biggest feeling that I had. And at that point, I was nowhere near playing professional tennis, but now a year later, I’m in a completely different space, and I have a clean bill of health, thank God, and I’m ready to play and compete.”
The next competitive challenge for Williams will be the 22-year-old world No 51 Jéssica Bouzas Maneiro. On the day Bouzas Maneiro was born, 24 September 2002, Williams had already won four grand slam singles titles, reached No 1 and contested the previous three consecutive major finals against her younger sister, Serena.
The elder Williams sibling said the US swing was the focus for her return and she is unlikely to compete after the US Open. The rest is unknown. “I’m very much in the moment,” she said. “I don’t think you should ever rule me out. That’s all I can say.”
