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Gail Falkenberg made another return to the ITF circuit, aged 79, suffering a brutal 6-0 6-0 defeat to college tennis player Aspen Schuman, who is 60 years her junior. A former top-400 player, Falkenberg competed on the professional circuit in the 1980s. She retired from tour-level competition in the 1990s but has continued to play matches on the ITF (now World Tennis) Tour into her 70s.
The American already holds a Guinness World Record for being the oldest match-winner on the ITF circuit. That came a decade ago in a qualifying round in Pelham when she was 69 years old. And 10 years later, Falkenberg is still competing.
Earlier this week, the 79-year-old entered the qualifying draw of the W35 Orlando tournament in Florida, but lost 6-0 6-0 to 19-year-old Schuman. It was the first singles match Falkenberg had played since 2023.
Schuman then went on to beat another American, Mary Boyce Deatherage, to qualify for the main draw. There, she took out Kajsa Rinaldo Persson before losing to Evialina Laskevich in straight sets.
Falkenberg has not won a professional match since she beat Rosalyn Small 6-0 6-1 in the first qualifying round of an ITF Futures in Pelham, Alabama on April 10, 2016. At the time, she was 69 years and 85 days old.
She went on to lose to Taylor Townsend in the second round. Townsend has since gone on to become a world No. 1 in doubles and a top-50 singles player. She has also completed the career Grand Slam in doubles, winning all four Majors at least once alongside her partner, Katerina Siniakova. Next week, Townsend and Siniakova will compete at the WTA Finals.
Towsend conceded just 12 points to Falkenberg in that second-round qualifying match a decade ago. Falkenberg, then on the cusp of her 70th birthday, then told The Wall Street Journal she could still improve.
“I know I can keep getting better. There's always something to work on with tennis. I'd love to be playing – and winning – at 70. I'm six months away from that,” she said at the time.
Falkenberg only made her main-draw debut on the Virginia Slims Tour (now the WTA Tour) aged 38 at the 1986 Brazilian Open. Between 1999 and 2011, she did not play a match. But she has competed in some ITF qualifying draws over the past 15 years.
In 2013, Falkenberg even took on former world No. 1 and four-time Major champion Naomi Osaka in the qualifying rounds in Rock Hill. It came five years before Osaka won her first Grand Slam title, and the Japanese star won 6-0 6-0.
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