Venus' season continues to unravel

CHICAGO • Former world No. 1 Venus Williams crashed out of the WTA Chicago Women's Open on Monday, losing in straight sets to Taiwan's Hsieh Su-wei, 6-2, 6-3.

The seven-time Grand Slam winner, who is the oldest tennis player in the draw at 41, spent just 67 minutes on the court in a one-sided opening-round match at the Washington Park facility.

Williams is now just 3-9 this season with her ranking dropping to 147th in the world.

It was one of the biggest wins of the 81st-ranked Hsieh's career as she improved to 11-12 this season.

The 35-year-old kept Williams on her back foot with strong serves, precision cross-court and down-the-line forehands, winning 70 per cent of her first-serve points.

She had just one double fault, compared to five for her opponent, who also had her serve broken four times and won just 56 per cent of her first-serve points.

In other matches, top seed and Tokyo Olympics bronze medallist Elina Svitolina of Ukraine was ahead 5-7, 6-1, 2-0 in the deciding third set when France's Clara Burel retired injured from their first-round match.

With the US Open starting next Monday, most tennis stars have given smaller warm-up tournaments like Chicago, Cleveland and the ATP event in Winston-Salem a skip.

There will be a bumper payout at the final Grand Slam of the year after organisers said the hard-court tournament will offer total prize money of US$57.5 million (S$78 million) this year, eclipsing the record payout of US$57.2 million set in 2019.

Despite the overall increase this year, prize money for the two singles winners has come down from US$3 million to US$2.5 million.​

World ranking of seven-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams, her lowest since 1997.

The US Open is set to be the first Slam since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic to welcome a full crowd.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS