NEW YORK—The central theme of this year’s US Open is barrier-breaking. Specifically, the barrier that Althea Gibson broke 75 years ago when she became the first African-American to play the U.S. Nationals at Forest Hills.
So it made sense that fans had a chance to see one of the inheritors of Gibson’s legacy, and a trailblazer of equal importance, Venus Williams, play in person on Monday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium. In 1997, the year that Ashe made its debut, a teenage Williams also made her Open debut, and went all the way to the final. Twenty-eight years later, we can see the product of that breakthrough in the many Black women tennis players who have come after her, and who populate the draw at Flushing Meadows today.
Williams’ presence would have been enough, no matter how her first-round match with Karolina Muchova went. And for the first three games, it looked like we might not get much more than that from Venus. She started the way you would expect a 45-year-old who hasn’t played a Grand Slam match in two years, and who has played very few matches anywhere since 2021, to start: slowly. Williams had trouble catching up to Muchova’s pace, and trouble getting her service motion in gear. She was down 0-2 before most fans had entered the building. Many of them may have wondered: Was she going to get a game?
Venus put those fears to rest by saving three break points and holding for 2-1. From there, she began to get comfortable in the rallies. Which is never going to be good for her opponents, no matter what her age is, because Venus has never lost her power. She can’t cover the court the way she once did. Her service toss gets away from her—she committed 10 double faults in this match. She starts breathing hard much more quickly than she once did. But for all of that, she can still put a flat wallop on the ball. When she does, even a highly-ranked 20-something pro like Muchova isn’t going to catch up with it.