The return of the 42-year-old American tennis player Venus Williams to court did not go well and she suffered a loss to 17-years-old Celine Naef (Switzerland) in a battle of the generations in the first round of the WTA 250 Libema Open in The Netherlands. Celine Naef scored a memorable win on her WTA main draw debut, coming from a set down and a break down to defeat the formed world’s number one Venus Williams by 2-1 (3:6, 7:6, 6:2) in 2 hours and 18 minutes.
The experienced American had not played for five months, but her conditioning was not inspiring today either. Venus Williams had won seven Grand Slam singles titles, five of which have come on the grass at Wimbledon. 17-year-old Celine Naef was born in 2005 in Switzerland, and the interesting thing is that her coach was the mother of Martina Hingis.
Venus Williams has not played so far due to a hamstring injury sustained at the Oakland tournament in January. But today she came out aggressively, trying to show the best of his qualities. A couple of good volleys ensured her victory in the first set in front of her sister Serena. And she kept the momentum going in the second set, breakingher opponent’s serve for 3:2. But Celine Naef demonstrated why she is considered one of the most talented young tennis players. Both showed court skills with passing shots, drop shots and volleys. The forehand of Venus Williams was crucial in keeping her in the set until the tiebreak, when she let her down with three key unforced errors to equalize.
In the third set, Venus Williams dropped out physically, and the young Celine Naef gained more and more serious confidence. At the end of the match, the statistics showed 41 unforced errors for Venus Williams, 16 of which were committed in the last eight games of the match.
“I can’t believe my luck to be on the court against Venus. She is an amazing competitor and a role model for many of us young people. For me, today’s match is the highest level I have reached. It was also incredible to play in front of such an audience. I was very nervous at the beginning, it must have been visible, but I tried to give my best”, said Celine Naef after the match.
In the next round, Celine Naef will face the 8th-seeded Caty McNally (USA), who eliminated Katie Volynets (USA) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:1).
In the other matches from the tournament, the 4th-seeded Ekaterina Alexandrova (Russia) defeated her compatriot Evgeniya Rodina by 2-0 (6:3, 6:4) and in the second round will face Kimberly Birrell (Australia), who eliminated Lesley Pattinama Kerkhove (Netherlands) by 2-0 (6:1, 6:4).
The 7th-seeded Aliaksandra Sasnovich (Belarus) defeated Lucrezia Stefanini (Italy) by 2-0 (6:0, 6:3), while Ashlyn Krueger (USA) eliminated Rebecca Peterson (Sweden) after 2-0 (6:1, 6:2) and Viktoria Hruncakova (Slovakia) won her match versus Susan Bandecchi (Switzerland) by 2-0 (6:4, 6:2).
The 6th-seeded Bianca Vanessa Andreescu (Canada) also advanced to the second round after defeating the qualifier Zeynep Sonmez (Turkey) by 2-0 (6:4, 6:4) and Sachia Vickery (USA) eliminated Priscilla Hon (Australia) by 2-0 (6:3, 6:0).
Earlier, the top-seeds Veronika Kudermetova (Russia), Liudmila Samsonova (Russia) and Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) also advanced to the second round of the tournament.