{"id":24043,"date":"2026-02-21T07:33:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T05:33:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/venus-williams-returns-to-indian-wells-with-wild-card-entry\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:48","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:48","slug":"venus-williams-returns-to-indian-wells-with-wild-card-entry","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/venus-williams-returns-to-indian-wells-with-wild-card-entry\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams returns to Indian Wells with wild card entry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams has been awarded a wild card entry into Indian Wells, the tournament said on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Williams, 45, will compete in both singles and doubles at the Southern California desert event.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great to be heading back to Indian Wells and returning home to California,&#8221; Williams said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There\u2019s nothing like competing in front of these incredible fans. I\u2019ve made so many fun memories here over the years, and I\u2019m grateful to the tournament for having me back,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p>The four-time Olympic gold medallist and former world number one has reached the Indian Wells semi-finals three times. She last competed there in 2024, also as a wild card.<\/p>\n<p>Williams played at this year&#8217;s Australian Open and reached the United States Open doubles quarter-finals last year with partner Leylah Fernandez.<\/p>\n<p>The tournament will be held from March 1-15.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21881,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-24043","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The tournament will be held from March 1-15.","published_date":null,"news_description":"The tournament will be held from March 1-15.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26847,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/24043\/revisions\/26847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=24043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}