
Venus Williams says she is engaged to Andrea Preti after her first singles win in 16 months
After becoming
the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match
, Williams gave thanks to her fiance, who was in the stands at the DC Open. He is Andrea Preti, who is a Danish-born Italian model and actor, according to the website IMDB.
The 45-year-old Williams hadn't played in a tournament in 16 months until entering the event in Washington. She won a doubles match on Monday and a singles match on Tuesday, before losing in doubles on Wednesday.
Williams, who has won seven Grand Slam singles titles, is scheduled to face Magdalena Frech in the second round on Thursday night.
___
AP tennis:
https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


USA Today
42 minutes ago
- USA Today
Jannik Sinner and Emma Navarro top list of US Open mixed doubles teams
The USTA confirmed 14 of the 16 teams Tuesday for the new U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament that has been reimagined with the goal of enticing top singles players to participate. Leading the entry list, at least in star power, will be No. 1 Jannik Sinner paired with American Emma Navarro and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz playing alongside 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu. Venus Williams, who came back to the tennis tour last week at age 45, received a wild-card entry to play with her longtime friend Reilly Opelka, the 6-foot-11 serve specialist currently ranked No. 74 in the world. The USTA announced its mixed doubles overhaul in June, hoping to bring eyeballs and pizzaz to an event that had fallen off the public's radar as tennis further stratified into singles and doubles specialists. Long gone are the days when top players like Martina Navratilova and John McEnroe would regularly play at least one doubles event at the Grand Slams. But with players now preferring to focus all their energy on singles, the USTA completely overhauled the format. Not only will mixed doubles now take place during qualifying week – the week before the main draw begins – the USTA also pumped up the prize money with $1 million going to the winning team. The first three rounds of the tournament will be played in a short format with sets to four instead of the normal six, no-ad scoring and a tiebreaker in lieu of a full third set. The final will be played with sets to six and a 10-point tiebreaker if there's a third set. Making the format friendly for players as they prepared for the main draw was enough to attract most of the top-10 on both the men's and women's tour to enter initially. The USTA awarded eight direct entries into the 16-team field based on the team's combined singles ranking and reserved eight wild cards to use at the tournament's discretion. Novak Djokovic, the all-time leader with 24 men's Grand Slam singles titles, received a wild card because he chose Olga Danilovic, a 24-year old Serbian ranked No. 40, as his partner. The last two wild cards will be announced closer to the tournament. There is also a possibility at least one team will be forced to withdraw, potentially opening up more spots in the field. Teams for the US Open mixed doubles tournament No. 1 Jannik Sinner and No. 11 Emma Navarro No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz and No. 33 Emma Raducanu No. 3 Alexander Zverev and No. 20 Belinda Bencic No. 4 Taylor Fritz and No. 12 Elena Rybakina No. 5 Jack Draper and No. 10 Paula Badosa No. 6 Novak Djokovic and No. 40 Olga Danilovic No. 7 Ben Shelton and Taylor Townsend (No. 1 in doubles) No. 9 Holger Rune and No. 7 Amanda Anisimova No. 12 Francis Tiafoe and No. 8 Madison Keys No. 13 Casper Ruud and No. 3 Iga Swiatek No. 14 Daniil Medvedev and No. 5 Mirra Andreeva No. 15 Tommy Paul and No. 4 Jessica Pegula Reilly Opelka and Venus Williams Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani (defending US Open champions)


USA Today
42 minutes ago
- USA Today
49ers Training Camp: Could San Francisco start three rookies in their front seven in 2025?
The San Francisco 49ers are motoring through their 2025 training camp at the SAP Performance Facility next to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and that includes their first padded practice session of the year on Monday. With pads on, coaches and players can get a much better idea of how they'll play in games than jerseys, pants and shells. That is especially true for the defense, as they can finally use some of that physicality when making tackles or taking on blockers. Through five days of camp, the 49ers have had a few players stand out, but the three defensive linemen that they took in the first four rounds of the 2025 NFL draft - Mykel Williams, Alfred Collins and CJ West - have stood out. If they're all practicing like they have been, and it continues into the preseason games, they may all earn starting roles, or at least key rotational roles, when the regular season comes along. Williams, 21, was San Francisco's first selection this year (No. 11 overall) after a two-time All-SEC career at Georgia that included a national championship. He should be the team's starting edge rusher opposite Nick Bosa, with Bryce Huff, who the 49ers acquired in a trade this offseason, likely playing a fair amount as well. Collins, 23, played at Texas from 2020-24, earning All-SEC and All-American honors last year before the 49ers took him in the second round (No. 43 overall). At 6-foot-6 and 332 pounds, Collins is a physical presence, who entered training camp with the expectation that he'll push out one of Jordan Elliott or Kevin Givens in the interior defensive line. West, 23, spent four seasons at Kent State (2020-23), where he earned All-MAC honors once, before transferring to Indiana for his final year in college. San Francisco took him in the fourth round (No. 113 overall) this year, and while many penciled him in as a backup in 2025, his performance on Monday have some questioning that decision. Even defensive coordinator Robert Saleh had positive things to say about the former Hoosier after his dominance. 'He's like a little fire hydrant, right? He's powerful. He's got heavy hands,' Saleh said during his media availability after the session. 'He's going to be fine. He's like a lot of rookies, there are so many things that they're learning, especially on the interior of the D-Line where it's a game within a game. You know, the first thing they learn is pocket push and then they learn how to capture an edge and rush from there. I wasn't there. I heard he did a really nice job over there, but I'm excited to get to the tape to see it.' With Williams all but guaranteed a starting role in Week 1, Collins and West are the questions of the trio. They'll have to do enough to unseat Elliott, who played 41.3% of defensive snaps last year and is entering the final year of a two-year, $7 million deal, and Givens, who played 17.3% of the snaps in 2024 and re-signed with San Francisco on a one-year, $2.05 million deal this offseason. It's going to take a lot of work from the rookies, but if they keep this up, all three could be on the field for the first defensive snaps of the season against the Seattle Seahawks on Sep. 7. And, if that's the case, not only will it speak to the front office's impressive work, but it will also set them up with a strong base to build on for years to come. However, it's still a little early for that. Let's let them get a second padded practice in before we put them down on the depth chart in permanent marker. More 49ers: 49ers roster move may be good news for WR dealing with potentially scary injury
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Legendary Mass. satirist who sang of the joys of ‘poisoning pigeons' dies at 97
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Lehrer, the popular song satirist who lampooned marriage, politics, racism and the Cold War, then largely abandoned his music career to return to teaching math at Harvard and other universities, has died. He was 97. Longtime friend David Herder said Lehrer died Saturday at his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He did not specify a cause of death. Lehrer had remained on the math faculty of the University of California at Santa Cruz well into his late 70s. In 2020, he even turned away from his own copyright, granting the public permission to use his lyrics in any format without any fee in return. A Harvard prodigy (he had earned a math degree from the institution at age 18), Lehrer soon turned his very sharp mind to old traditions and current events. His songs included 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,' 'The Old Dope Peddler' (set to a tune reminiscent of 'The Old Lamplighter'), 'Be Prepared' (in which he mocked the Boy Scouts) and 'The Vatican Rag,' in which Lehrer, an atheist, poked at the rites and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church. (Sample lyrics: 'Get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries. Bow your head with great respect, and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect.') Accompanying himself on piano, he performed the songs in a colorful style reminiscent of such musical heroes as Gilbert and Sullivan and Stephen Sondheim, the latter a lifelong friend. Lehrer was often likened to such contemporaries as Allen Sherman and Stan Freberg for his comic riffs on culture and politics and he was cited by Randy Newman and 'Weird Al' Yankovic among others as an influence. He mocked the forms of music he didn't like (modern folk songs, rock 'n' roll and modern jazz), laughed at the threat of nuclear annihilation and denounced discrimination. But he attacked in such an erudite, even polite, manner that almost no one objected. 'Tom Lehrer is the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded,' musicologist Barry Hansen once said. Hansen co-produced the 2000 boxed set of Lehrer's songs, 'The Remains of Tom Lehrer,' and had featured Lehrer's music for decades on his syndicated 'Dr. Demento' radio show. Lehrer's body of work was actually quite small, amounting to about three dozen songs. 'When I got a funny idea for a song, I wrote it. And if I didn't, I didn't,' Lehrer told The Associated Press in 2000 during a rare interview. 'I wasn't like a real writer who would sit down and put a piece of paper in the typewriter. And when I quit writing, I just quit. ... It wasn't like I had writer's block.' He'd gotten into performing accidentally when he began to compose songs in the early 1950s to amuse his friends. Soon he was performing them at coffeehouses around Cambridge, while he remained at Harvard to teach and obtain a master's degree in math. He cut his first record in 1953, 'Songs by Tom Lehrer,' which included 'I Wanna Go Back to Dixie,' lampooning the attitudes of the Old South, and the 'Fight Fiercely, Harvard,' suggesting how a prissy Harvard blueblood might sing a football fight song. After a two-year stint in the Army, Lehrer began to perform concerts of his material in venues around the world. In 1959, he released another LP called 'More of Tom Lehrer' and a live recording called 'An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer,' nominated for a Grammy for best comedy performance (musical) in 1960. But around the same time, he largely quit touring and returned to teaching math, though he did some writing and performing on the side. Lehrer said he was never comfortable appearing in public. 'I enjoyed it up to a point,' he told The AP in 2000. 'But to me, going out and performing the concert every night when it was all available on record would be like a novelist going out and reading his novel every night.' He did produce a political satire song each week for the 1964 television show 'That Was the Week That Was,' a groundbreaking topical comedy show that anticipated 'Saturday Night Live' a decade later. He released the songs the following year in an album titled 'That Was the Year That Was.' The material included 'Who's Next?' that ponders which government will be the next to get the nuclear bomb ... perhaps Alabama? (He didn't need to tell his listeners that it was a bastion of segregation at the time.) 'Pollution' takes a look at the then-new concept that perhaps rivers and lakes should be cleaned up. He also wrote songs for the 1970s educational children's show 'The Electric Company.' He told AP in 2000 that hearing from people who had benefited from them gave him far more satisfaction than praise for any of his satirical works. His songs were revived in the 1980 musical revue 'Tomfoolery' and he made a rare public appearance in London in 1998 at a celebration honoring that musical's producer, Cameron Mackintosh. Lehrer was born in 1928, in New York City, the son of a successful necktie designer. He recalled an idyllic childhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side that included attending Broadway shows with his family and walking through Central Park day or night. After skipping two grades in school, he entered Harvard at 15 and, after receiving his master's degree, he spent several years unsuccessfully pursuing a doctorate. 'I spent many, many years satisfying all the requirements, as many years as possible, and I started on the thesis,' he once said. 'But I just wanted to be a grad student, it's a wonderful life. That's what I wanted to be, and unfortunately, you can't be a Ph.D. and a grad student at the same time.' He began to teach part-time at Santa Cruz in the 1970s, mainly to escape the harsh New England winters. From time to time, he acknowledged, a student would enroll in one of his classes based on knowledge of his songs. 'But it's a real math class,' he said at the time. 'I don't do any funny theorems. So those people go away pretty quickly.' The latest from MassLive How one part of Patriots defense is already working on 'next-level stuff' Lawyers working in 'unique situation' as federal court extends Karen Read evidence order Franklin man killed in motorcycle crash with SUV in Walpole 'will be greatly missed' Grandmother who died in Gabriel House fire 'brought joy to all' Worcester school jobs saved as Trump admin releases education funding Read the original article on MassLive. Solve the daily Crossword