Venus Williams Joins Deep Field at 2026 ATX Open as Comeback Continues
venus williams will compete at the ATX Open in Austin, entering both singles and doubles play for the tournament that runs Feb. 23–March 1 at Westwood Country Club. Her appearance matters because it pairs a high-profile comeback with the event’s deepest field yet, giving local fans a rare chance to see a multiple Grand Slam champion on the courts.
Venus Williams: Development details
Williams is scheduled to play an opening-round singles match on Tuesday and will partner with Peyton Stearns in the doubles draw, tournament officials announced. The ATX Open field has grown since the event’s 2023 debut: 21 of the singles participants are ranked inside the top 100, and the entry list includes several players inside the top 33. World No. 6 Jessica Pegula will return to defend her title; Iva Jovic sits at No. 20 in the rankings and McCartney Kessler at No. 32, illustrating the depth organizers expect this year. A recent withdrawal by 2017 French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko was noted by tournament staff on Wednesday.
Williams’s competitive résumé cited for the event includes five Wimbledon singles championships, two U. S. Open singles titles and 14 Grand Slam doubles trophies. She will play both singles and doubles at Westwood, and her doubles pairing with Stearns pairs a veteran with a regular ATX competitor: Stearns has appeared at every edition of the tournament.
Context and escalation
The ATX Open has made steady gains since 2023, and organizers highlighted the addition of top-ranked players as a factor in drawing marquee names. Williams wrote this week in an email that she has always wanted to play the event and that Austin’s energy and vibrancy drew her to compete. Organizers also pointed to the tournament’s growing profile after the 2025 entry of a top-10 player, which marked the first time the event included a top-10-ranked competitor.
Williams has been working back from an extended absence after a 2023 knee injury. She returned to the tour in 2025 at the Mubadala City D. C. Open, where she won her first match there over Peyton Stearns, and has since played events in New Zealand and Australia already this year. While she continues to search for her first victory of the 2026 season, her ongoing participation in multiple events demonstrates a sustained effort to rebuild match play and momentum.
What makes this notable is the combination of Williams’s stature—her multiple Grand Slam titles—and the tournament’s upward trajectory; the pairing amplifies local interest and raises the competitive stakes on a tightly packed hard-court calendar.
Immediate impact
For Austin-area fans, Williams’s entry guarantees a high-profile draw: ticket demand is likely to spike for sessions featuring her singles and the Williams–Stearns doubles pairing. The field’s composition—headed by a top-10 returning champion and 21 players ranked inside the top 100—means early-round matchups will carry significant ranking implications for midseason positioning. The presence of Texas-affiliated players such as Peyton Stearns and Lulu Sun reinforces the tournament’s regional appeal and underscores the local talent pipeline.
On the tour front, Williams’s schedule will add one more veteran competitor into a week that already contains several established names, shifting the balance of experience in both singles and doubles draws. Tournament officials have placed Williams’s singles opener on Tuesday, creating a clear early milestone for her return to competitive action at Westwood.
Forward outlook
The ATX Open runs Feb. 23–March 1 at Westwood Country Club, with Williams slated to begin singles play on Tuesday and to contest doubles alongside Stearns during the week. Tournament officials have framed the week as the deepest field yet for the event; returning champion Pegula is on the entry list and will defend her title. With 21 players already inside the top 100, the event’s next confirmed milestones are match-play through the initial rounds beginning Tuesday and the doubles rounds that follow.
Those scheduled matches will provide the first concrete measure of where Williams stands competitively this season and how the tournament’s elevated roster performs across the week.
