Venus Williams granted wild card entry into the US Open

7 time Grand Slam winner, Venus Williams has been granted a wild card entry into the US Open, as announced by the USTA. This will be her 23rd US Open.

The United States Tennis Association has announced that Venus Williams will be awarded a wild card entry into the first round of the US Open. This will be Venus’ 23rd foray into this Grand Slam.

Other than her, Coco Vandeweghe, who is now ranked at the 160th position also received a wild card entry along with Emma Navarro, Hailey Baptiste, Caty McNally, Katie Volynets and the 17-year-old, Ashlyn Krueger.

Advertisement

Venus has won two consecutive times at the Flushing Meadows in 2000 and 2001. She has competed in every US Open, since 2006. Other than that, she has won five Wimbledon trophies, which is fourth behind Martina Navratilova’s nine Wimbledon trophies and seven trophies of Steffi Graff and her younger sister, Serena Williams. The 41-year-old has also been World no. 1 for 11 weeks in the women singles category. She was the first African-American woman to be ranked number one in the Open Era and the 2nd all-time, since Althea Gibson.

Her last few performances in this Grand Slam have been disappointing, to say the least. She got knocked out in the 1st round, itself, last year. In 2018 and 2019, she faced defeats in the 3rd and 2nd rounds respectively. Her last decent showing was in 2017 when she reached the semi-finals.
Venus is now ranked 112th, which means she is out of contention for getting a direct spot into the first round of the US Open. Direct entry is only granted to the top 104 players in the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Rankings.

She missed preparatory events like the Toronto and Cincinnati masters to focus on the Grand Slam. Now we have to see if she can conjure up a decent showing in this year’s US Open while it begins on the 30th of August.