{"id":4948,"date":"2026-01-02T08:28:03","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T08:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=4948"},"modified":"2026-01-02T08:28:03","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T08:28:03","slug":"australian-open-2026-venus-williams-45-receives-wildcard-for-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/?p=4948","title":{"rendered":"Australian Open 2026: Venus Williams, 45, receives wildcard for tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Venus Williams is set to become the oldest female player to compete in the Australian Open main draw at the age of 45.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The seven-time Grand Slam champion has received the final women&#8217;s wildcard for the tournament, which begins on 18 January.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Williams last appeared at Melbourne Park in 2021 when she was beaten by Italy&#8217;s Sara Errani in the second round. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;m grateful for the opportunity to return to a place that has meant so much to my career,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The American, twice a runner-up in the first Grand Slam event of the year, will surpass the record of Japan&#8217;s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she played at the event in 2015. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Venus Williams is set to become the oldest female player to compete in the Australian Open main draw at the age of 45. The seven-time Grand Slam champion has received the final women&#8217;s wildcard for the tournament, which begins on 18 January. Williams last appeared at Melbourne Park in 2021 when she was beaten by<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4949,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}