Four games in two sets
Venus Williams got what she could out of a short Tuesday in Guangzhou, which was not much. The 46-year-old lost 6-2, 6-2 to Austrian teenager Lilli Tagger in the first round of the WTA 250 event, her 16th straight singles defeat.
Tagger is 18 and ranked 53rd. Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion with five Wimbledon titles, now sits 599th. She has not won a tour-level singles match since the first round in Washington last July, a result that made her the second-oldest player to win on the WTA Tour, behind only Martina Navratilova, who was 47 when she did it in 2004.
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A comeback that never found rhythm
Since returning to the circuit almost a year and a half ago, Williams has struggled to string anything together. She has not won back-to-back singles matches since August 2019 in Cincinnati. This year’s US Open wildcard ended the same way as Guangzhou, a first-round loss, that time to fellow American Sofia Kenin.
The comeback itself began well. Williams came back after having uterine fibroids removed, benign growths that had caused her pain for decades. At Washington she said she knew she could play better and would. The scoreboard has not backed that up since.
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