{"id":39091,"date":"2026-01-02T20:31:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=39091"},"modified":"2026-01-02T20:31:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:46:07","slug":"venus-williams-gets-australian-open-wildcard-aged-45","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/venus-williams-gets-australian-open-wildcard-aged-45\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams gets Australian Open wildcard aged 45"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p><strong>MELBOURNE, Jan 2 :<\/strong> Seven-time major singles champion Venus Williams was handed a wildcard to the Australian Open aged 45 on Friday, becoming the oldest woman ever to play at the season-opening Grand Slam.<\/p>\n<p>The American, who has played only a limited number of singles matches in recent years, will compete in the main draw at Melbourne Park for the first time since 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m excited to be back in Australia and looking forward to competing during the Australian summer,&#8221; said Williams.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve had so many incredible memories there and I&#8217;m grateful for the opportunity to return to a place that has meant so much to my career.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Williams is a five-time Wimbledon champion and also won two US Opens.<\/p>\n<p>She was an Australian Open singles finalist in 2003 and 2017.<\/p>\n<p>She will become the oldest woman to play at the Australian Open since Japan&#8217;s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she lost in the first round in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, a four-time Australian Open doubles champion, is set to begin her preparations for the January 18-Feb 1 tournament at the Auckland Classic next week, having returned to the circuit at the US Open last year after a 16-month break.<\/p>\n<p>She will then head to the Hobart International immediately before Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>Two-time Grand Slam champion and fellow American Coco Gauff said it was &#8220;incredible&#8221; to see Williams still turning up for tournaments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a legend of the sport, so it will be cool to see her back in action,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s incredible the longevity of her career. She&#8217;s one of the people I looked up to, so looking forward to seeing her back on court.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MELBOURNE, Jan 2 : Seven-time major singles champion Venus Williams was handed a wildcard to the Australian Open aged 45 on Friday, becoming the oldest woman ever to play at the season-opening Grand Slam. The American, who has played only a limited number of singles matches in recent years, will compete in the main draw [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39093,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39091\/revisions\/39093"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}