MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — It took 45 years to be in a position to set a record that has drawn so much attention. So another 14 1/2 minutes serving to keep her Australian Open hopes alive felt like no time at all for Venus Williams.
Ranked No. 576 and playing on a wild-card entry, the seven-time major winner led 4-0 in the third set Sunday before Olga Danilovic rallied to win six straight games — getting the vital break in the extra-long, next-to-last game — for a 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Click to Gallery
Olga Danilovic of Serbia plays a backhand return to Venus Williams of the U.S. during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. plays a forehand return to Olga Danilovic of Serbia during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Spectators takes photos of Venus Williams of the U.S. as she walks onto court for her first round match against Olga Danilovic of Serbia at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. reacts during her first round match against Olga Danilovic of Serbia at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. serves to Olga Danilovic of Serbia during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
“It was an amazing journey on the court today,” said Williams, who left the stadium with a smile and a wave.
Just by starting the first-round match, Williams became the oldest woman to compete in an Australian Open singles main draw, surpassing the mark set by Japan’s Kimiko Date, who was 44 when she lost in the first round in 2015.
“I’m really proud of my effort today because I’m playing better with each match, getting to the places that I want to get to,” Williams said. "Right now, I’m just going to have to keep going forward and working on myself and working to control my errors.
“Those are things, too, that come with playing extra matches ... all of those things that I’m still learning. It’s kind of weird, but it’s super exciting to have played that well and to get myself in that position and come very close.”
She was 17 when she first made her Australian Open debut in 1998, reaching the quarterfinals. This was her 22nd trip to Melbourne Park, where she lost finals to her sister, Serena, in 2003 and 2017.
Williams was married in December to Andrea Preti and the couple traveled together in Melbourne.
Williams was determined not just to break Date's age record. She wanted to punctuate the occasion with a win that may just set up another match against Coco Gauff.
After splitting the first two sets, Williams went on a roll and dropped just five points across four games, hitting some vintage winners. Then No. 68-ranked Danilovic found range with her big left-handed forehand returns and put Williams back under pressure.
“I told myself before the match I really want to take this moment — playing against Venus Williams is something I can’t take for granted,” Danilovic said. "At 4-0, I said ‘just play.’
“It was such a pleasure playing against such a legend.”
At 4-4 in the deciding set, Williams served for 14 minutes and 28 seconds, saving two break points and setting up game points of her own with powerful winners and clutch aces, before she finally succumbed.
“It was such a great game, such a great moment. The energy from the crowd was amazing. That lifted me up so much,” Williams said of that penultimate game on her serve. “She played a great game. Also, some luck there, as well. That’s just the sport. That’s how it works sometimes. But it was an amazing moment.”
Danilovic calmly served out, clinching it in 2 hours, 17 minutes when a Williams forehand clipped the net and landed just wide of the line on match point.
Williams entered the Australian Open on a five-match losing streak since the first and only win in her comeback to the tour at Washington last year. Her U.S. Open comeback last August also ended in the first round.
“Yeah, at 4-love I felt good. Also, it’s the biggest lead I’ve had since I’ve been back,” Williams said. “In a lot of ways I’m having to relearn how to do things again, if that makes any sense.”
She'll keep that process going in the doubles at Melbourne Park, then she'll think about her schedule for the rest of 2026.
“Right now I’m very much in the tournament,” she said. “My next focus is the doubles. So that’s where my head is.”
Olga Danilovic of Serbia plays a backhand return to Venus Williams of the U.S. during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. plays a forehand return to Olga Danilovic of Serbia during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Spectators takes photos of Venus Williams of the U.S. as she walks onto court for her first round match against Olga Danilovic of Serbia at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. reacts during her first round match against Olga Danilovic of Serbia at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
Venus Williams of the U.S. serves to Olga Danilovic of Serbia during their first round match at the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne, Australia, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila)
TABQA, Syria (AP) — Government forces seized a strategic town and oil fields Sunday in northeastern Syria, part of an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces east of the Euphrates River.
This came after tensions between Damascus and the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, flared earlier this month, leading to deadly clashes and the government taking control of three Aleppo neighborhoods from Kurdish fighters.
Sunday's military push into Tabqa in the province of Raqqa is viewed as critical because of a dam that controls the southward flow deeper into areas under the SDF. The town is also home to a military air base.
An Associated Press reporter saw residents coming out of their homes to welcome the Syrian troops while waving the national flag. Another AP journalist saw Syrian government forces in control of oil fields in Raqqa province that had previously been under the control of the SDF.
Since leading an insurgency to oust longtime President Bashar Assad in December 2024, Syria's new leader, President Ahmad al-Sharaa, has struggled to assert full control across the country and appeal to minorities skeptical of Syria’s Islamist-led rule. The government and the SDF have traded accusations of violating an agreement in March that would reintegrate northeastern Syria and Kurdish-led forces with the government.
The SDF has controlled large swaths of northeastern Syria for years, including its oil fields, and has been Washington's key ally in combating the extremist Islamic State group. Since Assad's ouster, however, the United States has developed strong ties with Damascus and tried to ease tensions between the two sides.
The U.S. had urged calm after this month's Aleppo clashes left at least 23 dead and tens of thousands displaced. After the fighting halted, SDF leader Mazloum Abdi said Friday that the group would withdraw its forces from the area to the east of the Euphrates following al-Sharaa's announcement on measures adopted to strengthen Kurdish rights in Syria.
Last week, Syria’s Defense Ministry closed off a contested area in eastern Aleppo as a military zone, which includes part of a tense front line that divides the areas under government and SDF control. And now, it seems that government troops are heading deeper toward the city of Raqqa, one of the most significant in the country's northeast under SDF control.
Tabqa is the latest of the mostly Arab majority areas that government forces have captured in Raqqa province. It remains unclear how deep into the Kurdish heartland the Syrian military will go.
Syrian state media SANA reported Sunday that Kurdish forces detonated a bridge in the city, in an apparent bid to slow down Damascus' advances into the city.
Meanwhile, the Syrian government, in a statement, accused SDF forces of executing prisoners in Tabqa before withdrawing from the area. The SDF denied the allegations, saying they had transferred the detainees out of the prison, and accused government forces of firing at the facility. It shared a video showing armed men in civilian clothing in the prison seizing munitions left there, with the person filming yelling: “We liberated Tabqa prison!" No bodies were seen in the short video.
An AP journalist visited two prisons in Tabqa and found them empty of prisoners. There were no bodies inside. However, he saw three bodies of people in civilian clothes who appeared to have been killed at a school near one of the prisons.
The SDF took Tabqa from IS back in 2017 as part of its military campaign to take down the group’s so-called Caliphate, which at its peak stretched across large parts of Syria and Iraq.
Elsewhere, the governor of the Deir el-Zour province, further east, asked residents to stay home after reports of clashes with the SDF.
Relations between the SDF and Arab tribes in the eastern province near a strategic border crossing with Iraq have been strained. Deir el-Zour is also home to the Al-Omar oil and Conoco gas fields, near where U.S. troops are based in the area. There have been unconfirmed reports that local armed tribes opposed to the Kurdish-led administration have taken control of the fields.
Britain-based war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that government forces have taken control of more than a dozen villages and towns in the eastern Deir el-Zour countryside after SDF forces withdrew.
Kareem Chehayeb contributed to this report from Beirut.
Local youth cheer as Syrian government troops take control of the town from the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Tabqa, eastern Syria, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
A Syrian government soldier walks at al-Thawra oil field after government troops took control of it from the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) during an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces, in Raqqa, northeastern Syria, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Albam)
A Syrian government soldier stands next to the bodies of U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters on a road leading to the strategic town of Taqba in eastern Syria, during an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian government soldiers and locals carry the body of a dead civilian found by relatives in the street after government forces seized the strategic town of Taqba in eastern Syria, as part of an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian government soldiers and locals carry the body of a dead civilian found by relatives in the street after government forces seized the strategic town of Taqba in eastern Syria, as part of an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
A Syrian government soldier displays the ID of a dead civilian found in the street after government forces seized the strategic town of Taqba in eastern Syria, as part of an ongoing push against Kurdish-led forces, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
Syrian government soldiers pose for a photo taken by another soldier at the entrance to Raqqa, Syria, Saturday, Jan. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)
