Venus Williams waves goodbye at the U.S. Open … but is it for the last time?

ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — When his teenage daughters first broke onto the professional tennis tour in the late 1990s and started winning everything in sight, Richard Williams would tell anyone who’d listen that we’d better enjoy watching Venus and Serena while we could. His girls had too many other interests to be tennis lifers. At some point, they were going to tire of the tour grind and move on to surely dominate whatever came next.

In one sense, Richard was right. As the Williams sisters grew into their 30s and then 40s, they became successful businesswomen, fashion icons, movie producers and art collectors.

But just imagine if you’d have told him back then that in 2025, Venus would not only still be playing professionally but that in her 45th year of life, she’d get to experience a magical six weeks that made her appreciate the sport as much as she ever did.

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“I never had to think if I loved the game. I was always playing. It was part of my DNA,” she said. “But to be out here grinding at this point, there has to be a little love.”

Williams’ summer comeback officially ended on Tuesday. After she and doubles partner Leylah Fernandez lost their U.S. Open quarterfinal match 6-2, 6-1 to the No. 1 seeded team of Katerina Siniakova and Taylor Townsend, Williams walked to the net with a huge smile on her face, congratulated her opponents and did a full 360-degree wave to the crowd that had filled nearly all of Louis Armstrong Stadium’s 14,000 seats.

At the end of her 25th U.S. Open, it felt like a plausible goodbye. But was it? Just as she has every time over the last decade that an official retirement seemed to be the horizon, Venus left the door open just a crack for one more comeback, one more chance to test her game and her body against the best players in the world.

Even after seven Grand Slam singles titles and 16 in doubles, four Olympic gold medals and a lifetime of worldwide fame, Williams would love to squeeze just a little more juice out of an all-time career and once again defy any conception of what she’s supposed to be doing at this age.

“After this tournament, I can really see where I want to improve, what I can work on,” she said. “I think it’s all great feedback, but also I had a lot of chances to play a lot of matches here, which is what I’d desperately need to get better.

“I saw myself improving so much with every match I was playing, and in a lot of ways we just ran out of time.”

But at least she got these six weeks. No, it isn’t going to go down as the most successful or important period of her career. Across three tournaments in Washington, Cincinnati and here at the U.S. Open, Williams won one singles match and four in doubles. From a competitive standpoint, we don’t have to make it more than what it was.

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Just playing some good tennis was enough to validate all the effort she put in just to get back on the court after battling numerous injuries in the latter part of her career. And Williams more than cleared that bar.

In her first match after nearly 1 ½ years out of competition, she beat a top-50 player and recent NCAA champion in Peyton Stearns. At the U.S. Open, she gave No. 11 seed and two-time semifinalist Karolina Muchova all she could handle in the first round, winning a second set that represented perhaps the highest level she had reached on a tennis court since 2017. And with Fernandez, she gave the New York crowds thrill after thrill until they simply ran into the best doubles team in the world.

“What I’m proudest of is it’s not easy to come off the bench, and I’ve never had a layoff that long and it brought new challenges I wasn’t ready for in so many ways,” she said. “So I’m very proud I stayed myself. I didn’t try to play another game. I didn’t play it safe. I went for it and that’s who I am. I know who I am, and I know it can work once I have a little chance.”

In the end, that’s going to be as much a part of Venus’ legacy as all the titles, being No. 1 in the world and standing up to the stuffed suits at Wimbledon in 2007 and demanding equal pay for women. Even long past the point when she could prove anything with a tennis racket, as fully aware of her age as anyone in the world, she still wanted to come to work and just play one more match.

For now, that opportunity is over. But the way she played this summer, don’t bet on this being the end.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was so focused on this tournament here and really felt like we had a chance, so I haven’t given that any thought. I do have commitments, places I said I’d be and people expecting me to be there the next few weeks. So I’ll try to keep those, and if there’s any opportunity for me to play, hopefully I can get back somewhere this year. I just don’t know. I really don’t.”