Venus Williams, Caroline Wozniacki represent tennis at 2022 Met Gala

As millions of American women found themselves on the precipice of losing access to vital healthcare, the show went on for a vast coterie of assembled celebrities at the 2022 Met Gala, one that, with unintentional irony, was themed around America-centric fashion.

In contrast to last year’s Met Gala, which took place unseasonably late due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the European clay-court swing precluded most tennis stars from attending save former World No. 1s Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki.

Both Williams and Wozniacki have become fixtures at the annual gala, which is ostensibly held to raise funds for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. At her last Met Gala appearance, Venus stole headlines with a selfie taken with sister Serena and Maria Sharapova; this year, the five-time Wimbledon champion had a different posse on the red carpet, one that included comedienne Amy Schumer, Xiye Bastida, and Gabriela Hearst in matching black suits and sunglasses.

Williams, who is based in Florida, has been absent from WTA tournaments since last August, when she endured an opening round loss to Hsieh Su-Wei in Chicago that foreshadowed her withdrawal from the 2021 US Open.

Wozniacki presciently retired from tennis after the 2020 Australian Open—on the eve of the global pandemic and subsequent tour lockdowns—and took her official final bow at home in a Denmark exhibition last month. Flanked by husband and Missouri native David Lee, with whom she had her first child in 2021, she took a more dramatic approach to the theme, which had previously been described to have a Gilded Age flair.