GUANGZHOU — Venus Williams will make her return to competition at the WTA 250 Guangzhou Open, where she has been drawn against 18-year-old Lilli Tagger in her first singles match since the US Open. The tie pairs the 46-year-old American with an opponent 28 years her junior, with the main draw set to get underway on Monday, 26 February.
Williams last competed at the US Open, where she suffered a first-round singles defeat to Sofia Kenin for her 15th consecutive singles loss. She also lost her only doubles match at Flushing Meadows alongside her younger sister Serena. Williams has not won a singles match since July 2025 and has not reached a WTA Tour final since the 2017 WTA Finals, a run she will hope to end in Guangzhou where she will also contest doubles alongside Janice Tjen.
Tagger, born in February 2008, arrives as one of the tour's most highly regarded teenagers and is seen by some as a future Grand Slam contender. She has already won the Roland Garros junior title and claimed her first WTA Tour title in Prague earlier this year. The scale of the generational gap is stark: when Tagger was born, Williams had already been world No.1, had won six of her seven Grand Slam titles and had won two Olympic gold medals, more than 13 years after Williams made her WTA Tour debut.
If Williams can use her experience to overcome Tagger, she could face Magda Linette in the second round, with Daria Snigur and Katie Volynets among the other threats in her half of the draw. Should she mount a deep run to the final, second seed Janice Tjen — her doubles partner this week — looms as a potential opponent.