Venus Williams wins on Edgbaston debut

The five-time Wimbledon champion usually only plays at SW19 so her decision to take a wild card into the WTA Premier event came as a surprise.

Despite not having played on grass for almost a year, Williams played as if she had never been away from her favourite surface.

“I thought it was a really strong start, a pretty cool match,” said the 39-year-old American. “Not a lot of errors and my opponent played really, really well.

“So I know that I’m going to have to play well from here on out and just to be able to play some patches and, you know, and get my feet on the grass is a really good feeling.”

“It’s my first time and I have not played a lot historically before Wimbledon, so this is very new for me and very exciting,” added Williams.

“And it’s not often I get to play in a new city in front of a new crowd, so this is pretty exhilarating actually and when you get a wild card you hope to do something with it (laughing), so today I am like, “I’d love to win this match and make some good use out of this entry.”

Williams also remarked on the warm welcome she has received since arriving in the Midlands on Sunday, not least from the hundreds of local school children who are invited to the tournament each year in the hope of encouraging their interest in tennis. “It’s heartwarming. It is exciting to see young people excited about tennis so that makes me excited,” said Williams. “Since I have been here, I’ve been seeing a ton of young people here and there really into the game and they are really into the players, so I love this sport. It’s given so much to me and I like seeing young people having that opportunity to be able to grow from tennis.”

British No.1 Johanna Konta’s first grass court tournament of the season came to a disappointing 6-3, 6-4 end in the second round at the hands of former Roland Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko. The big-hitting Latvian has struggled for consistency this season but found a hot streak of form of form against Konta, who now heads to her home town of Eastbourne to play the Nature Valley International in the hope of gaining matches on grass ahead of Wimbledon.

“It is quite frustrating to be on the court against her because it felt like any mistake I made had a bigger consequence just because I had so few opportunities in the match and so few little windows to try and build any momentum or string points together,” said Konta.

But I knew going into the match that there was going to be every possibility that she was going to be playing like this and I was expecting it because there is no reason why she can’t play freely and when she does, she plays very well.”

Ostapenko acknowledged that it was one of her better performances of the year. “It was a good match from my side. I had nothing to lose because Jo is in great form right now and she made the semis at Roland Garros. She is a very good player on grass. So I came into the match without any expectations, but I tried to play my game and be more aggressive. And I think that helped me to win today, so I didn’t really give her time to play her game.”

The first ever WTA tour-level match between twins ended when the much lower ranked of the two Pliskova sisters, Krystina, knocked out her sister Karolina in a third set tiebreaker. Krystina is on a winning streak in Birmingham having come through the qualifying competition and outlasted her sister Karolina, who is World No.3 and was seeded third at the Classic.

Thursday sees Williams return to the court to take on Chinese talent Qiang Wang. Ashleigh Barty, who won her first match since lifting the French Open trophy in Paris 10 days ago with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Donna Vekic, returns to the Ann Jones Centre Court today to face Jennifer Brady for the place in the quarter-finals. World No.1 Naomi Osaka plays Yulia Putintseva.