WASHINGTON: Venus Williams made a triumphant return to singles tennis on Tuesday after a 16-month hiatus, defeating fellow American Peyton Stearns 6-3, 6-4 to reach the second round of the WTA and ATP Washington Open.

The 45-year-old winner of seven career Grand Slam singles titles rolled to her 819th career WTA singles victory in 97 minutes at the first US Open hardcourt tuneup event.

`It is not easy to come off after all that time and play the perfect match,` she said. `Peyton played so well. I felt like I was trying to slow myself down from going faster and faster and faster.

Venus had not played a WTA singles match since March of last year at Miami and had not won a match in 709 days since defeating Russian Veronika Kudermetova in the first round at Cincinnati inAugust 2023.

`I wanted to play a good match and win the match,` Venus said.

`It`s so rewarding to come back after a layoff and injuries.

Venus became the oldest player to compete in a WTA tour-level match since Japan`s Kimiko Date at 46 in Tokyo in 2017.

She became the oldest WTA match winner since Martina Navratilova at age 47 at Wimbledon in 2004.

`Thank you so much for the energy,` Venus told the crowd. `We were literally living and dying together.

Venus broke for a 4-3 lead in the second set, winning nine of 10 points in one stretch, then held to 5-3 and pushed Stearns in a 12-minute ninth game but missed on four match points before Stearns held.

Venus smashed a service winner on her sixth match point for the tri-umph, booking a second-round date with Polish fifth seed Magdalena Frech.

`I`m back here because of the encouragement of my team and they wanted me to come on back and play again so a lot ofthis isfor you guys,` Venus told spectators.

`You guys don`t know how much work goes into this. It`s nine to five but you`re running the whole time, lifting weights and then you`re like dying and then you repeat it the next day.

Japan`s Naomi Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, ousted Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-2, 7-5, to book a second-round match against Britain`s Emma Raducanu, the 2021 US Open winner who eliminated Ukraine`s seventh-seeded Marta Kostyuk 7-6 (7-4), 6-4.

`I`m excited about it,` Osaka said. `I`ve never played her before,so for me, that`s something really cool too. Because I`ve seen her, I guess when she first did well at Wimbledon before she won the US Open, moments like that, and I knew she was a good player.

`I`m looking forward to the match,`Raducanu said. `Itwillbe a great test of my own game and myself.

Britain`s Cameron Norrie rallied to defeat world number seven Lorenzo Musetti 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Norrie, seeking his sixth ATP title, captured his first victory over a top-10 player in 2 1/2 years.

`I made it very difficult for him, Norrie said. `My backhand was coming through the court low. My forehand was jumping. I`m just enjoying my tennis a lot more these days.

Norrie, whose most recent title was in February 2023 at Rio, snapped a 14-match losing streakagainst top-10 foes.

Wimbledon quarter-finalistNorrie next faces US 14th seed Brandon Nakashima.-AFP