Brenda Schultz-McCarthy may have lost the qualifying match, but she reclaimed the fastest ladies tennis serve record from Venus Williams over the weekend in Cincinnati.
Schultz-McCarthy, who is one of the oldest players on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at thirty-five years of age, originally stopped playing on the Tour in 1999, but came back earlier this season after a successful return in 2005 on the Dutch Fed Cup team.
For years she had consistently been the fastest server on the ladies circuit, but in 1998 a young Venus Williams broke her record and set a new one of 127mph. Venus’ record held for almost eight years, but last weekend in Cincinnati, Schultz-McCarthy recaptured the record with a blistering 130mph serve during a qualifying match, which she later went on to lose. Despite the loss, her confidence has to be increasing and she is already ranked just outside the top 300 at No. 311.
“A lot of people were asking me how fast I could serve now that I’m 35 years old,” Schultz-McCarthy said. “This is great, it’s very exciting. It was difficult to hear people say I used to have the fastest serve, or that I’m the second-fastest ever; this is definitely something I wanted to do in my comeback.”
(source: Sony Ericsson WTA Tour)
You can read more about Brenda Schultz-McCarthy’s record and her inspiring comeback by clicking here.
