Serena Jamica Williams (born September 26, 1981) is a professional women's tennis player, who has been ranked number 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on many occasions. She is the younger sister of another female tennis champion, Venus Williams. She currently resides at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States.
Early life
Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan and when she and her four sisters were young, their parents, Richard and Oracene (also called Brandy), took them to the poor and sometimes violent Los Angeles suburb of Compton. There, her father dreamed of making at least one of his daughters a tennis superstar, hoping that involvement in sports would give them a way out of that neighborhood.
Both Venus and Serena Williams would be taken to Compton area public tennis courts to practice when they were young, and they had to dodge bullets many times during the early practice days. When Serena was four and a half, she won her first tournament, and she entered 49 tournaments before the age of 10, winning 46 of them. At one point, she replaced sister Venus as the number one ranked tennis player aged 12 or under in California.
1991-1997
In 1991, Richard Williams, saying that he hoped to prevent his daughters from facing racism, stopped sending them to national junior Tennis tournaments, and Serena attended a Tennis school run by professional player Ric Micci instead. Micci had already helped the careers of Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce, among others. Soon Richard, who had struck a deal on behalf of his daughters with a major clothing company, was able to move the rest of the Williams family to West Palm Beach, to be near Serena and Venus.
Serena became a professional in September 1995, at the age of 14. Because of her age, she was banned from WTA sponsored tournaments, and had to participate in non-WTA events at first. Her first professional event was the Bell Challenge in Quebec, and she was ousted in less than an hour of play.
She did not give up, and she started winning matches: By 1997, ranked number 304 in the world, she upset Monica Seles and Mary Pierce at the Ameritech Open in Chicago, recording her first career wins over top 10 players. She finished 1997 in the top 100 at no. 99.
1998
1998 was the first year in which she finished in the WTA top 20. She began the season in Sydney as a qualifier ranked no. 96 reaching semifinal winning over world no. 3 Lindsay Davenport in the quarter final. At the Australian Open, she defeated world no. 9 Irina Spirlea in the first round before losing to sister Venus. She reached six other quarterfinals during the season. At Miami, she defeated world no. 10 Spirlea in the 2nd round for her fifth top 10 victory becoming the fastest woman in tennis history to record five top 10 victories (in 16 matches) breaking the previous record set by Monica Seles in 1989 in her 33rd match. She won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon and US Open with Max Mirnyi completing a Williams family 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slam as sister Venus won Australian Open and Roland Garros titles with Justin Gimelstob . She won her first pro title in doubles at Oklahoma City with sister Venus becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA tour women's doubles title. She earned 2.6 million dollars in the season.
1999
In 1999, Serena was ranked number 21 worldwide, and she and sister Venus had become mainstream celebrities. She defeated Amelie Mauresmo in third set in a final the same day sister Venus won in Oklahoma City marking first time in professional tennis history two sisters won titles in the same week. Ranked number 21, she defeated 3 top 10 players: world no. 2 Lindsay Davenport in the second round, world no. 8 Mary Pierce in the quarter final, and world no. 7 Steffi Graf in the final at Indian Wells. Serena felt she had become a top professional after beating Lindsay Davenport in the semi-finals of a minor Australian tournament. Serena was then expected to do well in her first Grand Slam tournament, but she lost in the second round of the Australian Open to sister Venus.
Serena has been the focus of many ad campaigns, including one with shoe and clothes maker Puma, which signed her to a 12 million dollar agreement.
On September 11 of 1999, Serena won her first Grand Slam tournament when she became US Open champion, becoming the first African American woman to win a Grand Slam tournament since Althea Gibson did it in 1958. The next day, she and sister Venus won the doubles championship at the same tournament. She finished 1999 in the top 5 at no. 4 in just her third full season winning first five titles of her career including her first Grand Slam.
2000-2002
In 2000, she won the doubles gold medal at the Olympics with sister Venus. 2001 was the third consecutive year in which she finished in the top 10 reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in two years. In 2002, she won the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open.
By this stage, Serena had developed the most powerful groundstrokes of any women's tennis player ever (aided, like all players of the modern era, by the advances in racquet technology). Against most opponents, her sheer power is enough to win easily, forcing them back behind the baseline to hit their shots, at which point she is able to hit equally powerful winners. Her serve is also extremely powerful - in sheer speed, comparable to some of the male players on the tour. Serena is also very mobile for her size and power, unlike some of the earlier big hitters in the women's game (for example, Lindsay Davenport). The main weaknesses in her game, similar to her sister Venus, include relatively weak volleying and, because she attempts so many winners, she can occasionally commit large numbers of unforced errors.
2003
Martina Navratilova, in an article in June 2003, stated that, given equal equipment, at her peak she would have been able to beat Serena. She stated that she believes that Serena's powerful groundstrokes could be negated by extending the rallies and also hitting "junk" - keeping the ball low to make it harder to hit powerful shots.
She won the Australian Open in 2003, her fourth straight Grand Slam singles title becoming the fifth woman ever to hold all four titles after Connolly, Court, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf and only the ninth woman ever to win all four Grand Slam events. This was not deemed a Grand Slam by tennis purists, as the four tournaments were not won in the same calendar year. Her feat was coined the "Serena Slam"
For the first time since January 2002, the Grand Slam final did not read Williams-Williams at French Open in June 2003. Among boos and catcalls, frustrated Serena lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium (Venus lost to Vera Zvonareva in the fourth round). Henin-Hardenne commented: "Everybody's happy today but the Williams sisters". Henin-Hardenne is responsible for two of Serena's three losses in 2003 (all on clay).
At Wimbledon in the 2003 tournament, Serena Williams became back to back champion, by defeating Henin-Hardenne in the Semifinals, and her sister Venus in the Finals on July 5, with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
When Serena beat her sister Venus to win the Australian Open on January 24, 2003, that was only the sixth time a woman has held all four of tennis' major championships at the same time, and the first since Steffi Graf in 1994. Even this so-called "Serena Slam" is not a true Grand Slam -- tennis purists demand that a player collect all four major titles in a single calendar year to be deemed to have achieved a Grand Slam -- it was still a remarkable and rare accomplishment, made all the more remarkable for the fact that Serena had to beat her sister each time. The Williams siblings are the first two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals.
Williams' older sister, Yetunde Price, was murdered on the morning of September 14, 2003, by gunshots as she passed by in a car driven by a man in the Compton area.
2004-2005
She withdrew from Australian Open 2004 to continue rehabilitating her left knee. She reached the final of Wimbledon once again, but lost to the 17-year-old Russian player Maria Sharapova, heralded as one of the greatest young talents the game has seen. On July 30, she withdrew from her quarterfinal match against Russia's Vera Zvonareva with a left knee injury joining her sister who had earlier pulled out due to a sprained right knee. On August 1, she announced her withdrawal from the Rogers Cup due to the same injury. The injury also forced her to pull out of the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Controversy has arisen over Williams's level of dedication to the sport. Some believe that she is far too concerned with her fashion and acting careers, and has not focused enough recently on her tennis. Disappointing performances during 2004 have been cited as proof of this lack of focus. However in 2005 she won her seventh Grand Slam event defeating Maria Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport en route to the title.
These controversies re-emerged in April 2005 as MTV announced plans to broadcast a reality show around the lives of Serena and Venus Williams.
Titles (36)
| Legend (Singles) |
| Grand Slam (7) |
| WTA Championships (1) |
| Tier I Event (7) |
| WTA Tour (11) |
Singles (26)
Performance Timeline
Doubles (10)
External links
Last updated: 05-21-2005 19:18:56
