MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — At 45, it's no surprise Venus Williams will be setting an age record at the Australian Open when she lines up Sunday in the first round.
The fact she'll be the oldest player ever to compete in the Australian Open women's singles draw wasn't something she realized until after she'd received a wild-card entry to play at the year's first major for the first time in five years.
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Venus Williams of the United States prepares to serve during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States prepares to serve during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States plays a backhand return during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States serves during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
“I hadn’t thought about it until it came out in the press,” she said Saturday in closing her pre-tournament news conference. “So yay. Yay for me! Let’s do this.”
She then left the auditorium and walked hand-in-hand with her husband, Andrea Preti, down a corridor back toward the player area — which isn't much like she remembered it from her previous trip in 2021, the 21st time she'd competed at Melbourne Park.
Williams was married in December, a celebration she said was her priority between the first two major tournaments in a comeback to the tour that started last July.
She was 17 when she first played the Australian Open in 1998, reaching the quarterfinals in just her fourth Grand Slam event and coming off the back of a run to the final of the U.S. Open.
“It was a beautiful time, because there’s so much I didn’t know,” she said when asked to reflect on her first trip. "But there’s a great thing of not knowing because it lets you have a clean slate. There was so much I needed to learn, and then I learned it.
“That’s the thing about sport — you keep stepping up to the line, and while there is nothing to prove, it’s all about the attitude and the effort. No one can control that. Controlling that part is really the win.”
Williams lost her Grand Slam comeback match at the U.S. Open last August. Williams will face Olga Danilovic, a 24-year-old left-hander from Serbia, in the last match Sunday on John Cain Arena.
The No. 68-raked Danilovic is playing her 11th Grand Slam tournament and her third in Australia, where her run to the fourth round last year equaled her best at a major.
Williams, a seven-time major winner, is ranked 576 because of her limited time on the tour. She lost in the first round of warmup tournaments in New Zealand and Hobart to start the 2026 year. If she can register her first win of the year on Sunday, she could face third-seeded Coco Gauff in the second round.
“At this point, I need to be kind to myself, because I’m getting so many things right, but, you know, there has been a lack of playing matches,” she said. "So I’m playing well. I’m setting myself up each point to win points and controlling the points.
“That’s exactly how I’d want to play, and I’m playing the tennis I need to play.”
AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Venus Williams of the United States prepares to serve during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States prepares to serve during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States plays a backhand return during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
Venus Williams of the United States serves during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Thom Tillis isn't holding back during his final year in Washington.
“I'm sick of stupid,” the two-term Republican from North Carolina said from the Senate floor recently as he derided President Donald Trump 's advisers for stoking a potential U.S. military takeover in Greenland.
It was just one of several moments during the opening weeks of 2026 when Tillis, who isn't seeking reelection, seemed unconstrained by the anxieties that weigh down many of his GOP colleagues who are loath to cross the White House for fear of triggering a political backlash.
He's one of just two Republicans, along with Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who participated in a congressional delegation to Denmark this week while Trump threatens to seize Greenland. He was quick to criticize the Justice Department's investigation of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. As Trump and his allies try to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot, Tillis backed the eventual display of a plaque honoring police who defended the Capitol that day.
He has shown particular frustration with Trump's top aides, notably deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller.
“I don't want some staffer telling me what my position is on something,” he said after Miller gave a forceful interview on CNN saying Greenland “should be part of the United States.”
“He made comments out of his depth,” Tillis added.
The moves reflect the sense of freedom lawmakers often feel when they know they won't have to face voters again. They've helped attract swarms of reporters who follow Tillis through the halls of Congress as he offers candid thoughts on news of the day. And they've won support from the handful of other Republicans who sometimes cross Trump, including Murkowski, who called out “good speech!” as she passed him in the Capitol following his floor remarks on Greenland.
For the 65-year-old Tillis, who has won elections in one of the most politically competitive states, the approach is notable for the way in which he's pushing back against the White House. He's hardly staking out a position as a never-Trumper and repeatedly — often effusively — expresses support for the president.
Rather, he's targeting much of his criticism at senior White House aides, sometimes raising questions about whether Trump is receiving the best advice at a consequential moment in his presidency as the GOP enters a challenging election year.
“I really want this president to be very, very successful,” Tillis said this week. “And a part of his legacy is going to be based on picking and choosing the right advice from people in his administration.”
Heading into the midterms, Tillis said, “I want to create a better environment for Republicans to win.”
Tillis, who had a challenging childhood involving multiple moves, worked at an accounting and consulting firm before entering politics. He was the speaker of North Carolina's House of Representatives from 2011 to 2015. He said this week that he approaches his concerns from a business perspective.
“Sometimes there's just things that people need to say, ‘not a good idea, not in our best interest, hard to implement,” he said. “I probably should have started by saying that’s what I did in the private sector for about 25 years.”
Beyond Miller, Tillis has raised questions about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's immediate response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis. Hours after the shooting, while an FBI investigation was still unfolding, Noem defended the officer and said Good “attempted to run a law enforcement officer over.”
Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill the next day, Tillis said he was “surprised by the level of certainty in her comments” and suggested such rhetoric influenced Trump, who was also quick to defend law enforcement.
“She's advising the president so the president's comments had to have come I assume through the advice of the secretary,” he said.
Tillis' balancing act was on particularly vivid display earlier this month on the fifth anniversary of Jan. 6, when he helped broker the deal to publicly show the plaque honoring officers that was held up by House Speaker Mike Johnson. Speaking from the Senate floor, he called the attack “one of the worst days in my 11 years in the U.S. Senate.”
He lauded the staff and U.S. Capitol police who defended lawmakers and helped ensure that Congress ultimately certified Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election. But he also struck fiercely partisan tones, blaming Democrats for embracing a movement to defund the police and criticizing media coverage of protests that turned violent during the summer of 2020.
Tillis framed Jan. 6 as a “wonderful stress test for democracy” before arguing that the Biden administration went “overboard” by prosecuting “people who were dumb enough to walk into the building but they weren't the leaders.” He then pivoted to criticism of Trump's sweeping pardons of Jan. 6 defendants, including those who attacked police.
But even then, he didn't directly blame Trump, again focusing on his advisers.
“The president, on the advice of somebody in the White House — and I hope I find out the name of that person — also pardoned criminals who injured police officers and destroyed this building,” Tillis said. “If you had that happen to your office or your business, would you think well they were just a little hotheaded and let them go and not prosecute them? Or would you hold them accountable for destroying the citadel of democracy?”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on Tillis' assessment of Trump's aides. The senator rejects any suggestion that he's stepped up his criticism because of his impeding retirement, calling the notion “hysterical.”
His relationship with Trump hit a low point last summer when he opposed the president's sweeping tax and spending cuts package. Trump accused Tillis of seeking publicity and said on social media that the senator was a “talker and complainer, NOT A DOER.” Tillis announced his retirement soon after voting against the measure, one of only two Senate Republicans to do so.
Trump has been more sanguine in response to Tillis' more recent comments. Asked this week about the senator's criticism of the Fed probe, Trump said, “That's why Thom's not going to be a senator any longer, I guess.”
“Look, I like Thom Tillis,” Trump said. “But he's not going to be a senator any longer because of views like that.”
Associated Press writer Stephen Groves in Washington contributed to this report.
FILE -Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., speaks during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Sarah Silbiger/Pool via AP, File)
FILE - Wearing a beaded bolo around a pin that says "United States Senate," Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., listens to thanks from members of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, after the passage of a bill granting the tribe with federal recognition, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Dec. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
