Venus Williams delivers vintage Australian Open performance in agonizing loss

MELBOURNE, Australia — Venus Williams was so close.

Sunday night, the seven-time Grand Slam champion was two games away from becoming the oldest woman to win a match at the Australian Open, when she led Olga Danilović of Serbia 7-6(5), 3-6, 4-0.

In a three-set battle that lasted more than two hours and had no shortage of twists and turns and ups and downs, Danilović instead stormed back and to reel off six straight games, yanking away another chance for Williams, 45, to write a new and remarkable chapter in her comeback story.

“It was such an amazing atmosphere,” the 24-year-old Danilović said on the court, after dashing the dreams of one of the sport’s legends.

Williams had scraped through a tight first set, staving off a comeback from Danilović in the tiebreak with the fiercest of forehands down the line to get the early advantage.

In the second set, it appeared that she had expended all her reserves battling for the first.

Then came a topsy-turvy decider. Williams sprinted to a 4-0. It looked like she was going to finish off a woman 21 years younger than she is with some serious élan. A quarter of an hour later, it was 4-4. Williams couldn’t find the court. Danilovic couldn’t miss.

Facing a break point that likely would have spelled the end if she lost it, Williams did the thing she has been doing since the mid-1990s. She cracked a big, unreturnable serve to draw even. She did not want this to end, and neither did the 10,000 fans packed into John Cain Arena.

Williams played her first match at the Australian Open three years before Danilovic was born. She has played nearly 1,100 matches and won more than 800. It’s hard to imagine a situation on a tennis court that she has not seen — but experience could only get her so far. She kept swinging hard, trying to pound the ball through the court and past Danilović. But the balls wouldn’t stop coming back, and Williams couldn’t make Danilović miss before she did.

On match point, tough luck descended, as the ball ticked the top of the net and floated into the doubles alley.

“Playing against Venus Williams is not something i can take for granted,” Danilovic said. “At 4-0 I said, ‘Just play.’”

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