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Venus Williams Loses at Indian Wells. Naomi Osaka Advances

Venus Williams of the US leaves the court after losing to Nao Hibino of Japan during the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 07, 2024 in Indian Wells, California. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images/AFP
Venus Williams of the US leaves the court after losing to Nao Hibino of Japan during the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 07, 2024 in Indian Wells, California. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images/AFP
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Venus Williams Loses at Indian Wells. Naomi Osaka Advances

Venus Williams of the US leaves the court after losing to Nao Hibino of Japan during the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 07, 2024 in Indian Wells, California. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images/AFP
Venus Williams of the US leaves the court after losing to Nao Hibino of Japan during the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 07, 2024 in Indian Wells, California. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images/AFP

Venus Williams played a match on tour for the first time in about six months on Thursday, and the 43-year-old owner of seven Grand Slam titles gave away the lead and the last 10 games in a 2-6, 6-3, 6-0 loss to qualifier Nao Hibino at the BNP Paribas Open.
Williams hadn't competed anywhere since a first-round exit at the US Open on Aug. 29. That 6-1, 6-1 defeat against Greet Minnen was the American's most lopsided loss in 100 career matches at the major tournament she won in 2000 and 2001.
When Thursday's defeat ended with Williams getting broken for the seventh time in 12 service games, she walked to the net to congratulate Hibino, then left the court with a smile and a wave as much of the sparse crowd stood to applaud, The Associated Press reported.
Williams, once ranked No. 1 and now outside the top 450, won her most recent Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 2008 and has played sparingly in recent years, in part because of injuries. Her most recent appearance at Indian Wells came in 2019.
She still can offer stinging serves and big backhands, but her performance this time was filled with mistakes, including 10 double-faults.
The match was interrupted by heavy rain after they completed just two games in windy and chilly conditions Wednesday night. When play resumed about 14 hours after the suspension, the sun was out, the temperature rose above 70 degrees (20 Celsius) and Williams no longer needed the long-sleeved white top and black leggings she used the night before.
The 80th-ranked Hibino, who came into this match with an 0-3 career record at Indian Wells, will meet No. 17 seed Veronika Kudermetova in the second round.
On Day 2 in the desert, with a packed scheduled because of the previous night's weather, winners included four-time Grand Slam title winner Naomi Osaka, 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu, 2018 Australian Open winner Caroline Wozniacki and 2022 Australian Open runner-up Danielle Collins. Next for Collins is a matchup with No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who edged her in three sets at the Australian Open in January, while Osaka's 6-3, 6-1 victory over qualifier Sara Errani allowed her to move on to face No. 14 Liudmila Samsononva.
Among the men, three-time major champ Stan Wawrinka was edged 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-2 by 63rd-ranked Tomas Machac, and Gael Monfils, qualifier Lucas Pouille, Borna Coric and 19-year-old American Alex Michelsen won.
There was rain at night again, halting play for about 2 1/2 hours, before resuming a little past 9:30 p.m. local time.
Rafael Nadal was supposed to play in his first tour match since January on Thursday night, but he withdrew from the tournament on Wednesday.

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Olympic Tennis Players Return to Red Clay of Paris' Roland Garros

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
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Olympic Tennis Players Return to Red Clay of Paris' Roland Garros

Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)
Carlos Alcaraz of Spain holds his trophy as he stands with Novak Djokovic of Serbia after winning the men's singles final at the Wimbledon tennis championships in London, Sunday, July 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali)

The competition surface doesn’t change for most Olympic sports. A pool’s a pool. A track’s a track. A wrestling mat’s a mat. And so on. Tennis? That’s a whole other story, with tournaments contested on clay, hard or grass courts — and now there’s a shift for the Paris Games.
For the first time in more than 30 years, the tennis competition at an Olympics will be held on red clay, which means players who recently made the adjustment from the dirt at the French Open in early June to grass at Wimbledon in early July will need to reverse course again in short order, The Associated Press reported.
The “terre battue” at Roland Garros used for the French Open hosts Olympic matches starting on July 27 — two weeks after Wimbledon wrapped up with singles titles for Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Carlos Alcaraz of Spain — and the transition back to that site is more concerning to some athletes than others.
“That’ll definitely be interesting. But everyone’s kind of doing it. We’ll all be in the same boat,” said Jessica Pegula, an American ranked in the top 10 who is expected to play singles, women's doubles with US Open champion Coco Gauff and perhaps mixed doubles, too. “I usually don't struggle too much with switching. And I like how the courts play there. It might be easier than some other places we play on clay. When the weather is warm in Paris, it plays pretty true. There’s a good speed. There’s not a lot to get used to.”
For her, maybe.
“It’s going to be the first time for me, going from grass to clay," said Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the 2022 Wimbledon champion and a semifinalist there this month. "It’s not easy. Physically, it’s not easy, (or) mentally.”
One additional factor on some players' minds: There will be another brief turnaround after the Olympics to prepare for the move to the hard courts ahead of the US Open, which starts in late August. That's less than a month after the medals are awarded in France.
“It’s awful for the schedule,” said Taylor Fritz, Pegula's teammate for the United States and someone who just reached the quarterfinals at the All England Club. “It makes absolutely no sense. It screws everything up, for sure.”
Tennis becomes a different sport, in some key ways, depending on where it's being played.
“You have to adapt to it. ... It’s going to be weird, obviously, going back on the clay quickly,” said Cam Norrie, who will represent Britain at the Olympics, “but we’re changing surface and changing variables all the time.”
Clay is softer and slower, which can dull the power on serves and groundstrokes and create longer exchanges, putting a premium on stamina, while the grittiness can magnify the effect of heavy topspin. Grass is speedier and balls bounce lower. Hard courts tend to produce truer, midrange bounces and generally will reward those who go for point-ending shots.
The biggest difference among them might be the footwork. Clay requires sliding. Grass is more about choppy steps, to avoid slipping. Hard courts generally do not cause as many falls as either of the others.
“For a clay-court player, the adjustment’s not that hard,” 1989 French Open champion Michael Chang said. “For (people) that have grown up playing on the surface, you just know the surface so well.”
So someone like Iga Swiatek, who has won four of the past five French Opens, should feel comfortable and confident on clay, by far her best surface.
The same goes, of course, for Rafael Nadal, a 14-time champion at Roland Garros. Novak Djokovic has won at least three Grand Slam titles at each of the sport's biggest events, the only man to do so, and the adjustments required come rather naturally to him.
Then again, Alcaraz, whose title at Roland Garros this year made him, at 21, the youngest man to win a major trophy on clay, hard and grass courts, had this to say about going from London to Paris: “It’s not easy to change surfaces in just a week.”