For the 1,099th time in her career, Venus Williams took her place on the baseline before a tennis match and prepared to do battle. As has been the case almost every time she has competed for the last 31 years, Williams fought hard until the end, but there was no fairytale outcome in the midwest. After two competitive sets on Centre Court, the in-form Spaniard Jessica Bouzas Maneiro knocked out Williams in the first round of the Cincinnati Open with a 6-4, 6-4 win.
Things had looked particularly bleak for the 45-year-old Williams early on as she struggled to keep the ball in court, quickly falling down two breaks at 1-4 in the opening set. At 22, Bouzas Maneiro has been on the rise in recent months and her ranking of 51 belies a run of form that includes a fourth round at Wimbledon followed by a quarter-final in Montreal last week. The Spaniard showed her quality by remaining solid from the baseline, maintaining consistent depth, offering up few errors and looking for opportunities to redirect Williams’ pace.
“I could hear their dismay as the set score started to look dismal in the first set,” Williams said, smiling. “But I’m thinking, ‘Folks, it’s not over. This is just the beginning.’ So we got to 4-4 and you can hear the excitement as well. It’s, very, very exciting to play at home. It’s just an honour.”
Williams gradually found her rhythm and fought hard, retrieving both breaks as she dragged herself level in the opening set. She produced her best stretch of tennis in the second set, using her forehand to bully the Spaniard from the baseline and demonstrating the enduring quality she possesses with her destructive first serve to lead 4-3. In the final stages of both sets, however, Bouzas Maneiro’s shot tolerance, defence and composure under pressure determined the match.
While a first-round loss at any event was once a tragedy for a player of Williams’ calibre and record, at 45 years old and after competing so sparsely in recent years, her expectations are low. While her victory over the world No 35 Peyton Stearns in Washington DC last month was a major achievement, she also left the court happy with how she had played on Thursday and she enjoyed the sensation of battling on the court again.
Once again, Williams, who had already won four grand slam titles and reached No 1 by the time her opponent was born, was competitive, fought hard and did not look out of place against a talented player in one of the biggest tournaments in the world.
“Right now it’s hard for me to be upset,” said Williams. “Of course, I want to win the match, but it’s hard for me to be [sad]. If you’re on tour, day in, day out and you lose a match, you’re like, ‘Man, I had some chances.’ I know that I lost this match because I just need more matches. After this match, I’m just thinking, ‘OK, what am I going to work on?’ instead of, ‘Gosh, I screwed that up.’
“Yes, I could have played better. But the thing I feel good about is that I did go for it. No one dunked on my head. She definitely had some great shots, but I went for it, and sometimes they didn’t land, and sometimes she had some great shots. But it’s not that I didn’t know what to do. It’s just that I need to keep working on it.”
After 10 days of practice, Williams will next compete in the revamped US Open mixed doubles tournament alongside Reilly Opelka and she will surely also receive a singles main draw wildcard. Although it would make sense at her age for the US Open to mark her final grand slam appearance, Williams has shown for three decades that her next move is impossible to predict.
Elsewhere, Coco Gauff said she is willing to exhaust her energy reserves in service of winning her second grand slam title of the season at the US Open. “It feels like I’m pushing that nitro button and just leaving it all out there. This is the part of the season that I feel like you’re just like: ‘I just want to give it literally everything.’”
In the men’s draw, Jacob Fearnley, the British No 3, fell 6-1, 6-4 to Zizou Bergs of Belgium in the first round.