Venus Williams returned to the tennis courts at the Indian Wells Open, and she impressed, but it still wasn't enough to win the match.
Playing tennis at the highest level at 43 is very difficult to do and, honestly, quite unlikely. Venus Williams is till doing that, but she's aware that she's not going to really win that many more matches.
She's definitely not going to win that much after missing many months of tennis, so for the American to play this well was certainly impressive, after she's been away from the sport for such a long time.
She didn't play a single match this year, and she basically outplayed a player early on who had been playing really good tennis in recent weeks. Nao Hibino, who the American took on, is not a Top 10 player, but she's a good player, really decent on her day, and she still lost the first set 2-6.
Venus was playing amazingly, and while may were skeptical that it would last for the entirety of the match, everyone probably wanted it to last. A win would be huge for her because we are quite possibly seeing her play the final season of her career.
After surviving that opening set, Hibino slowly started to find her rhythm. She's a pretty good hitter, and as she played better and better, so did Williams start to make mistakes.
She got broken after a barrage of unforced errors and then once more after committing three double faults in a row. The second set was a 6-3 for the Japanese player, who only increased the level from there.
For a brief moment, Venus looked inspired as she fought her way to a break point early in the third set but didn't use it. Hibino would break immediately in the next game, and that decided the match.
There was no coming back from that for Williams, who bowed out 6-2, 3-6, 0-6 in her first match back, but certainly impressed and inspired many.
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