Sunday, March 23, 2014
SERENA JAMEKA WILLIAMS (born September 26, 1981) is an American
professional tennis player who is currently
ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's
Tennis Association has ranked her
World No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions. She became the World No. 1
for the first time on July 8, 2002, and regained this ranking for the sixth
time on February 18, 2013, becoming the oldest world no. 1 player in WTA's
history. She is the only female player to have
won over $50 million in prize money. Williams
is the reigning French Open, US Open, WTA Tour Championships and Olympic ladies
singles champion.
Williams
holds the most Major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined
amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 32 Major titles puts her seventh on the
all-time list: 17 in singles, 13 in women's doubles, and 2 in mixed doubles.
She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four Grand Slam
singles titles simultaneously ('02–'03) and only the fifth woman ever to do so.
Her total of 17 Grand Slam singles titles is sixth on the all-time list, and fourth in the Open Era, behind Steffi Graf (22 titles) and Chris Evertand Martina Navratilova (18 titles each). She has won 13 Grand Slam doubles
titles with her sister Venus
Williams and the pair are
unbeaten in Grand Slam finals. Serena Williams is also a four-time
winner of the WTA Tour
Championships. Williams is only
one of five tennis players all-time to win a multiple
slam set in two disciplines,
matching Margaret Court, Roy Emerson, Martina Navratilova and Frank Sedgman. The arrival of Venus
and Serena Williams has been credited with launching a new era of power and
athleticism in women's tennis.
Williams
has won four Olympic gold medals,
one in women's singles and three in women's doubles, an all-time record shared
with her sister Venus.
Serena Williams was born in Saginaw,
Michigan, to Richard
Williams and Oracene
Price and is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea and Isha Price, and full sister Venus. When the children were young, the family moved to Compton,
California, where Serena started playing tennis at
the age of four. Her father home-schooled Serena and
her sister Venus and to this day, Serena Williams was and remains
coached by both her parents. Williams' family moved from Compton to West
Palm Beach when
she was nine so that she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci, who
would provide additional coaching. Macci spotted the exceptional talents of the
sisters. He did not always agree with Williams' father, but respected that
"he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls". Richard stopped sending his daughters to national
junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, since he wanted them to take it
slow and focus on school work. Another factor was racial, as he had heard white
parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during
tournaments. At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United
States Tennis Association junior tour
and was ranked No. 1 among under-10 players in Florida. In
1995, when Serena was in the ninth grade, Richard pulled his daughters out of
Macci's academy, and from then on took over all coaching at their home. When
asked in 2000 whether having followed the normal path of playing regularly on
the junior circuit would have been beneficial, Williams responded:
"Everyone does different things. I think for Venus and I, we just
attempted a different road, and it worked for us." In
2003 sister Yetunde was fatally shot in an SUV after a confrontation with
youths in Compton.
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