Venus Williams and company light up Charlotte in a lively tennis exhibition
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Venus Williams returned to Charlotte to play tennis for 1st time in 19 years.
- Madison Keys beat the 45-year-old Williams 7-6, 6-0 in the first exhibition of the night.
- In the final exhibition, Frances Tiafoe edged Taylor Fritz, 6-4, 4-6, 1-0 (10-8).
Venus Williams came back to Charlotte to play tennis for the first time in 19 years Thursday, and the crowd of 10,592 was very glad to see her.
Although Williams was the lowest-ranked player of the four in the Charlotte Invitational — a one-night tennis exhibition held in the Spectrum Center — she was also the one who drew the loudest cheers. She is 45 now, a champion who changed the game in her day (along with her younger and even more accomplished sister Serena). Venus has retired and un-retired, and she’s no longer the same player who once won seven Grand Slam singles titles.
But who among us is the same athlete at age 45 compared to 35 or 25? Just getting to see the queenly Williams in the Queen City seemed enough for many in the crowd, which robustly cheered each of her winners.
“I just love the game,” Williams said in her post-match interview Thursday night. “I’m having so much fun. Hitting the ball is a joy.”
Currently ranked No. 147 in the world, Williams hung in there nicely against world No. 7 Madison Keys for one set. Williams came back from 3-0 down in the first set to lead 6-5, but Keys then held serve and rolled in the tiebreaker, winning it 7-1.
In the second set, Williams looked tired and Keys turned it on, hitting winners to both corners and making the age difference quite apparent. A fading Williams didn’t win a single game in that set. The final score: Keys won, 7-6 (7-1), 6-0.
“Getting to play Venus is just so special,” said Keys, who also played in Charlotte last year in December (against Sloane Stephens). Then Keys ended up winning the Australian Open Grand Slam in January.
Keys jokingly said at a news conference earlier Thursday that she owed that Australian win — the biggest of her career — to Charlotte.
It is true that Keys, 30, literally grew up watching Williams play: Williams turned pro at age 14, in 1994. Keys was born a year later, in 1995. When Williams had last played in Charlotte in 2006 — an exhibition against her sister Serena — Keys was 11.
This was the second year of the Charlotte Invitational. While the crowd was respectable, it was more than 5,000 people short of Year 1 in 2024, when 16,194 fans showed up. That number was largely driven by Carlos Alcaraz, the charismatic superstar who is currently the No. 1 player in the world.
Alcaraz’s opponent in 2024 was Frances Tiafoe, the American who is also a crowd favorite. Now ranked No. 30 in the world, Tiafoe enjoyed Charlotte enough the first time around that he returned a year later to this same exhibition, as Keys did. This time Tiafoe played Taylor Fritz, the top U.S. player and No. 6 in the world.
Tiafoe is the most natural showman of the four players in the exhibition and has always enjoyed a crowd. He twice brought people out of the crowd to hit a few balls Thursday: One was former Charlotte Hornet Gordon Hayward (who was a strong high school tennis player) and the other was a 9-year-old from Greensboro with a great forehand. Fritz also hit a few balls with Carolina Panthers backup quarterback Andy Dalton, who subbed in to play one point for Tiafoe and “won” it (wink-wink).
“I especially like coming to cities that don’t normally have tennis,” Tiafoe said Thursday morning, referencing Charlotte’s lack of a high-profile professional tournament. “Last year was an unbelievable turnout. Happy to be here again.”
Tiafoe nipped Alcaraz in a tiebreaker in 2024. This time Tiafoe and Fritz split sets, then played a 10-point tiebreaker in lieu of a third set.
The men played around on the court in the first two sets a good bit more than the women, occasionally keeping the ball in play longer than needed to allow the other player to attempt a spectacular shot.
As Fritz had said in a news conference Thursday morning about exhibitions: “It’s definitely a different feeling than when you’re at a tournament, and it’s more stress and more pressure. You can have fun and focus on playing good tennis but also focus on really just entertaining the crowd and making it fun for everyone.”
The two world-ranked players didn’t fool around in the tiebreaker, though. Tiafoe remained undefeated at the Charlotte Invitational, winning the match when Fritz missed a difficult overhead, 4-6, 6-4, 1-0 (10-8).
“Both of us raised our level a lot in the tiebreaker,” Fritz said. “He was just a little bit better.”
“Hopefully you’ll get to see me again and again,” Tiafoe said. “I’d love to keep coming.”
