{"id":43087,"date":"2026-08-19T12:02:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:02:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=43087"},"modified":"2026-08-19T12:27:42","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T10:27:42","slug":"venus-williams-receives-us-open-wildcard","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/venus-williams-receives-us-open-wildcard\/","title":{"rendered":"Venus Williams receives US Open wildcard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Two-time US Open singles champion Venus Williams has received a wildcard entry into this year\u2019s tournament, organisers said on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Seven-time Grand Slam winner Williams, 46, was eliminated in the first round at Flushing Meadows last year after falling to Czech Karolina Muchova.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>She and sister Serena also returned to doubles action for the first time since 2022 on Monday, suffering an opening round defeat at the Cincinnati Open.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open winner, was also among those granted a wildcard on Monday. The 33-year-old is trying to make a comeback after a foot injury derailed her 2025 season.<\/p>\n<p>Organisers said one women\u2019s singles wildcard spot is still to be announced.<\/p>\n<p>On the men\u2019s side, Frenchman Gael Monfils was among those who got a wildcard into the main draw earlier this month. The former world number six previously announced that he would retire at the end of the season.<\/p>\n<p>Monfils and spouse Elina Svitolina were also given wildcards into the US Open mixed doubles tournament on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21881,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-43087","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Organisers said one women\u2019s singles wildcard spot is still to be announced.","published_date":"","news_description":"Organisers said one women\u2019s singles wildcard spot is still to be announced.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43087","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\/43087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43088,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/43087\/revisions\/43088"}],"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=43087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=43087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}