Venus Williams and Andy Murray at Wimbledon: Tennis legends and Olympic champs keep love for sport alive
The former Wimbledon winners and multi-time gold medallists are playing for a combined 38th time at the All-England Club, with Williams having made her debut in 1997.
Tennis
Over a decade ago, on the eve of the Olympic Summer Games London 2012, tennis stars Venus Williams and Andy Murray were posing for cameras on the famed grassy hill on the grounds of the All-England Club, the home of Wimbledon.
Just days later - with the Olympic Torch Relay a distant memory - Murray would claim his first Olympic gold medal on Centre Court, enthralling a nation with a straight-set triumph over Roger Federer, who had beaten him in the Wimbledon final only weeks prior.
Williams, herself already a three-time Olympic gold medallist, would claim doubles gold alongside sister Serena, her fourth triumph at the Games - making her and Serena the most successful Olympic tennis players... ever.
Both Venus and Andy are embarking on another Wimbledon campaign in 2023, which marks a 24th for the American who made her debut in 1997, and the 14th for Murray, who first played his home major in 2005.
The tennis legends still have the trappings to beat the best in the world: Murray, now 36, is ranked world No.39 this week. Last week, Williams, 43, won her second match in nearly two years by beating 36th-ranked Camila Giorgi at a WTA Wimbledon warm-up stop.
Play for the love of the game? For these two, that couldn't be more true.
Venus Williams: Back, back, back again
As Serena announced her pending "evolving away from" tennis, many around the sport wondered if the most famous sister duo in sport would exit stage left together. But Venus, as she always has, was making plans of her own.
Williams opened 2023 with an appearance in New Zealand, winning a match for a first time since Wimbledon 2021. An injury sustained there set her out for the coming Australian Open, and she would not make appearances on either the U.S. hardcourt swing or the clay season in Europe.
A wildcard into a WTA event in the Netherlands saw her play professional tennis the week she'd turn 43 years old (on 17 June), and a coming appearance at Wimbledon - where in 2022 she played mixed doubles with Andy's brother Jamie Murray - was confirmed, some 26 years after her '97 debut at 17.
"I love being here," Williams said when she beat Giorgi before pushing eventual Birmingham champion Jelena Ostapenko to three sets in the next round. "The last couple years I haven't really been on tour."
On Monday (3 July), the five-time champion here in singles made another appearance on Centre Court, meeting former world No.3 Elina Svitolina, herself making a comeback after giving birth last October. Williams had a scary early-match fall, needing medical attention for an already-taped right knee. The blip hampered her movement, and Svitolina took advantage, winning 6-4 6-3.
Andy Murray: New hip, who this?
While Venus has played sparingly over the last couple of seasons, Murray's push has been more fervent - and consistent. Having had major hip surgeries and nearly retired from the game in 2018/19, he has now become the epitome of a never-say-die attitude, even in elite sport.
Murray believes he can still capture major magic at the Slams - including Wimbledon, where he's won in 2013 and 2016, in addition to his Olympic win on Centre Court.
"I can have a deeper run than the third round of a Slam, there's no question about that," he said after making that round at this year's Australian Open.
He has - as he always done - charted his own path: As peer Novak Djokovic chases more history this Wimbledon and Rafael Nadal looks to rest up and get healthy for a swan-song 2024, Murray has put in a workmanlike 8-9 season together in 2023, though just in the past few weeks he added two lower-level grass titles to his name on the ATP Challenger Tour.
Murray, with his Rio 2016 singles title, remains the only tennis player to win more than one Olympic gold medal in singles.
Murray isn't the only familiar tennis name in the men's draw: Gael Monfils, the French veteran, is also 36 and playing on a protected ranking after a series of injuries. While fellow contemporaries Richard Gasquet, 37, and Stan Wawrinka, 38 years old (and a three-time major champ) will also feature, as will 38-year-old American John Isner.
Venus and Andy: The Olympic spirit
Williams and Murray have always done things their own way, so it should be no surprise to see them playing on at the respective stages of their careers.
But that's how they've approached not just life on the court - but off of it, too.
In the late 1990s, Serena and Venus ushered in a new era of hard-hitting women's tennis, while also challenging a sport that had seen Black athletes excel but rarely dominate. Venus also took the mantle in the fight for equal prize money for women at Wimbledon, making a moving speech in 2005 and writing an op-ed in the London Times in 2006.
When equal prize money was realised for the first time at the event in 2007, the champion was fitting: Venus herself.
Murray, too, has taken on a myriad of social issues, notably clean competition and the fight against doping, and also equality in tennis, having been coached as a kid by his mother, Judy Murray.
In 2014, Murray announced Amelie Mauresmo, the two-time major winner from France, as his coach, marking the first time men's tennis had seen one of its top stars coached by a woman he wasn't related to. (Jimmy Connors was long coached by his mother, Gloria.)
"To me it was a no-brainer," Murray said of the Mauresmo decision, saying she was the best for the job.
But she also faced a double-standard, Murray added: "When I'd lost matches previously in my career, nobody had questioned my coach. In tennis, it is generally the individual who gets questioned. That wasn't the case when I was working with Amelie."