Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki get wild-card invites to US Open

Venus Williams is coming again to New York after she acquired a wild-card invite Wednesday into the U.S. Open girls’s singles fundamental draw.

She and former world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki sit atop the listing of eight gamers awarded wild playing cards from the U.S. Tennis Affiliation for the Open, which is able to start later this month.

Williams is a seven-time Grand Slam singles champ, together with Flushing Meadows wins in 2000 and 2001.

It’ll mark Williams’ twenty fourth U.S. Open since she made her debut with a finals run in 1997, earlier than a few of her youthful foes have been even born.

The 43-year-old simply returned to competitors earlier this summer season in the course of the grass-court season after she had been sidelined for six months attributable to harm.

And her return has been an encouraging one.

Monday, Williams earned her first top-20 victory in four years, beating Veronika Kudermetova 6-4, 7-5 on the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati.

Williams, who misplaced within the first spherical of the 2022 Open after getting a wild card, is presently ranked No. 533 on this planet.

Wozniacki, the 2018 Australian Open champ, had beforehand been revealed as a wild-card recipient when she announced her return to tennis in an essay in Vogue earlier this summer season.

The U.S. Open, at which she was a finalist in 2009 and 2014, shall be her first Grand Slam look since she retired following the 2020 Australian Open to begin a household.

Now after having two kids — 2-year-old Olivia and 6-month-old James — Wozniacki is returning to the court docket.

Her first match again was a first-round win final week in Montreal on the Canadian Open earlier than she misplaced within the second-round.

She additionally dropped her opener in Cincinnati.

Different girls getting wild playing cards embody Individuals Kayla Day, Ashlyn Krueger, Robin Montgomery and Clervie Ngounoue.

Former top-10 participant John Isner, now 38, leads the lads’s wild playing cards.

The principle draw begins Aug. 28. Present world No. 1s Carlos Alcaraz and Iga Swiatek are the defending champs.