Venus Williams's Wild Ride

After a polarizing wild card, 45-year-old Venus Williams again defied the skeptics and the odds to win in Washington.

WASHINGTON — Something the careers of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams and Venus Williams have all had in common: due to being highly-hyped teenagers, they all played in their first professional tournament thanks to a wildcard entry.

And of those careers that have ended, they have almost all¹ ended that same way: Nadal, Murray, Sharapova, and Serena all played in their final main draw match thanks either to a wildcard or a protected ranking after they had slipped to altitudes well below their lofty peaks.

A tennis career is like a deck of playing cards fresh out of the pack: the wildcards are probably going to be concentrated at one end or the other.

That symmetry was easy to spot tonight as 45-year-old Venus Williams played her first round singles match on Tuesday evening in Washington, decades after her much ballyhooed debut as a wildcard in Oakland in 1994.

31 years later, Venus was again playing as a wildcard.

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