Venus Williams confirms engagement to actor Andrea Preti after victory in comeback at D.C. Open
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Venus Williams hadn’t played in a singles match in 16 months.
The seven-time major winner and one-time Olympic gold medalist hadn’t won a singles match in nearly two years.
None of that mattered Tuesday, when the 45-year-old legend defeated 23-year-old Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 in the first round of the D.C. Open. Williams is now the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match, behind Martina Navratilova, who won at age 47 in 2004.
“It’s just about putting it all together, right?” Williams told the Tennis Channel’s Rennae Stubbs during an on-court interview following the match. “You can still play a good match and lose the match. So I wanted to play a good match and win the match.
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“It’s so rewarding to come back after layoff and injuries. And also I didn’t have to come back to play. I’m back here because of the encouragement from my team. They wanted me to come on back and play again. So a lot of this is for you guys.”
A bit of news came from the interview as well, as Williams confirmed to Stubbs that she is engaged to 37-year-old actor Andrea Preti.
“Yes, my fiance is here, and he really encouraged me to keep playing,” said Williams, who will face 27-year-old and fifth-seeded Magdalena Frech later this week. “There were so many times where I just wanted to coast and kind of chill. ... He encouraged me to get through this, and it’s wonderful [for him] to be here. He’s never seen me play.”
A day earlier, Williams teamed with 23-year-old Hailey Baptiste to defeat Eugenie Bouchard and Clervie Ngounoue 6-3, 6-1 in a first-round doubles match.
“I think, from the first point, I could see that we were going to be a good team,” Williams said afterward in an on-court interview. “We just should have started playing earlier, years ago, right? I think Serena was just in the way.”
Williams was kidding. She and her younger sister won 14 majors and three Olympic gold medals as a duo.
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Williams had every right to be giddy after a successful return to the court following a lengthy hiatus during which she underwent a medical procedure to remove fibroids from her uterus last July.
“It’s just nice to be able to play,” Williams said during her postmatch news conference with Baptiste. “Where I am at this year is so much different than where I was at last year. It’s night and day, being able to be here and prepare for the tournament as opposed to preparing for surgery a year ago.”
She added: “Tennis is a game. It’s our life. It’s literally our obsession. ... But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter if your health is not there. So it definitely put it in perspective for me and maybe made it easier to make the decision to maybe come back out here and maybe play even freer.”
Williams and Baptiste lost to Taylor Townsend and Shuai Zhang 6-4, 3-6, 10-6 in the women’s doubles quarterfinals Wednesday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
