Background

Serena Jameka Williams was born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, United States. She is a daughter of Richard Williams and Oracene Price. Williams is the youngest of Oracene's five daughters, Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, born in her first marriage, and Venus, the eminent tennis player.

Education

Serena Williams, as well as her elder sister Venus, has been involved in tennis since a tender age. Their parents were their first coaches at the very beginning of their path to the tennis Olympics. One of the training exercises most frequently used by their father was sending hundreds of tennis balls to his daughters when they stood against the wall. The girls also trained on public tennis courts in Compton, California, and nearby, which were the areas with the intense crime situation at the time. However, their skills developed rapidly.

Serena Williams debuted in the tennis tournament at the age of four and a half, and, as her father stated, won 46 of 49 tournaments she took part in during the next five years. Within the course of time, she succeeded Venus as the number-one player in southern California on the level age-12-and-under. The achievements of both sisters soon provided them with lots of invitations to prestigious tennis camps and offers to sign lucrative product-endorsement deals.

From 1991, according to the decision of their father, Serena and Venus didn't enter tournaments on the national junior circuit. That was made in the hope of protecting the young talents from competitive pressures, including the expressions of racial hostility. That same year, the Williams sisters were sent to Florida where they began to attend the tennis academy of tennis teaching pro Ric Macci, mentor of Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce. In 1993, the sisters dropped out of school and pursued their education at home. Six years later, in August, Serena graduated from Driftwood Academy of Lake Park, Florida.

Career

The start of Serena Williams' adult career can be counted from 1995 when she turned professional, just a fourteen-year-old girl. Her professional debut match at the non-WTA Bell Challenge (later known as the Tournoi de Québec) in Vanier, Quebec, Canada ended by a loss. Yet, due to the constant encouragement from her father and the investment in his daughters' training, both Williams sisters improved significantly. Williams took 1996 off, playing in neither WTA nor non-WTA events.

In 1997, Williams was defeated in the first round by a highly ranked player in her first WTA professional match held in Moscow. She then beat the then world number seven Mary Pierce at an Ameritech-sponsored tournament in Chicago. In the quarterfinals, Williams won over a more difficult rival, the then fourth-ranked Monica Seles. Serena finished the season in 99th place in the world ranking.

A turning point in Serena Williams' career came two years later when she grabbed her first singles titles and, that was even more important, reached the debut Grand Slam title winning the U.S. Open. At the tournament, Williams also won the doubles event in pair with her elder sister Venus. Olympic gold medals in the doubles event followed at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The period of the uneven play during the next several years ended when Serena triumphed at all the three major tournaments of 2002, the French Open, the U.S. Open, and Wimbledon, defeating Venus in the finals of each event. A career Grand Slam was completed a year later as Serena earned the title of the fourth component of the Slam, the Australian Open. She also defended her Wimbledon title the same year, again taking over her sister in the finals.

In 2005, Williams won her next Australian Open. Although the next season was messed up by injury, Serena took revenge in 2007 winning the tournament for the third time. In 2008, the Williams sisters again shone brightly at the Olympic Games, this time held in Beijing, earning gold medals in doubles. That same year, Serena Williams won her third U.S. Open. In 2009, she added the 10th Grand Slam singles title to her collection and defended her Australian Open and Wimbledon titles in the next season. Williams had to skip almost all the tournaments of 2011 because of certain health issues.

She returned on the court in 2012 with renewed vigor and captured her fifth Wimbledon singles title. A month later, the tennis star added the gold to her Olympic accolades, winning the singles event in London. It made her the second female player, after Steffi Graf of Germany, to earn a career Golden Slam. The achievement was complemented by the victory in the doubles, again in a team with Venus, and by the 15th Grand Slam singles title, brought by a win at the U.S. Open. The second victorious French Open and the fifth U.S. Open, both in singles, followed in 2013.

The victory at the 2014 U.S. Open championship became the 18th career Grand Slam title for Williams and ranked her the second woman, after Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, for the highest singles total in the history of the Open Era. The 20th total Grand Slam singles title followed a year later along with the sixth career Wimbledon singles trophy. The number of Williams' career Grand Slam singles titles grew up by two in 2016, tying her with Graf in that ranking, for both women and men in the Open Era. Williams surpassed Graf's record, winning over her sister Venus in the final of the 2017 Australian Open. Later that year, Serena went public with the statement that she would miss the remainder of the season because of her pregnancy.

Serena Williams resumed competing in March 2018. She managed to make the finals of Wimbledon and the U.S. Open but didn't win any of the tournaments. Though, the loss at the latter was the result of Williams' penalty for arguing with the chair umpire over a code violation. A year later, Williams again failed in both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open finals.

Williams finally had the first victory after a pregnancy leave beating her compatriot Jessica Pegula in the final of the 2020 ASB Classic tournament. At the Australian Open, Williams ceded to Wang Qiang of China. Seeded 3rd at the U.S. Open, she lost to other tennis-playing mother, Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, in the semifinals. Williams left the French Open of that year before the second round by invoking the Achilles injury received in the U.S. Open match against Azarenka.

It's also worth noting, that Serena appeared in episodes of a number of sitcoms and tv-series, including The Simpsons, My Wife and Kids, Street Time, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, All of Us, Avatar: The Last Airbender, among others.

Achievements

• 

  Serena Williams is arguably one of the greatest tennis players of all time. A former world No. 1, she has earned in total 73 single titles, what is the 5th in overall rankings, 23 doubles titles, and 23 Grand Slam titles (the best number in the Open Era) during her career as a professional. Three Olympic doubles gold medals, an all-time record, and one singles gold medal are also to her credit.
  
  Serena Williams has set many records related to the Grand Slam title. First, she is a holder of the most Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles combined, among active players. She is ranked third of all-time and second in the Open Era with her 39 Grand Slam titles. Williams is the most recent player who managed to earn a Grand Slam title on hard (record 13 titles), clay and grass surfaces in one calendar year. Along with her eminent sister Venus, Serena is also the recent player to date to have won all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously.
  
  Williams is the second only to Steffi Graf of Germany to hold the world No. 1 for the most straight weeks. Her total result for holding the ranking is 319 weeks, what is the third in the Open Era to Graf and Martina Navratilova. Williams is still unsurpassed to date with her 7 Australian Open victories and is tied with Chris Evert for the most U.S. Open wins (6), both records for the Open Era.
  
  Such an impressive number of victories have largely influenced and continue to inspire rookie tennis players, both male and female, who have chosen the tennis star as a role model. Williams was voted the Associated Press Female Athlete of the Decade for the 2010s on December 29, 2019. She is a recipient of a great number of prestigious sports awards in various categories, the major of which are the WTA Awards, ESPY Award, Laureus World Sports Awards, to name but a few.

Works

More photos

• book

  • On the Line

    (In this compelling and poignant memoir, Serena takes an e...)

    2009
  • My Life: Queen of the Court

    (Explosive and revealing autobiography from one of the mos...)

    2009
  • Venus and Serena: Serving from the Hip

    (Eminent sisters speak candidly about their personal exper...)

    2005

• movie

  • Venus and Serena

    (An unprecedented look into the extremely private world of...)

    2012
  • 7 Days in Hell

    (Two tennis arch-rivals battle it out on the court in the ...)

    2015

• TV-series

  • Being Serena

    (A look at how tennis legend Serena Williams takes on preg...)

    2018

Religion

Brought up as Jehovah's Witness, Serena Williams claimes that she isn't a devoted believer. However, she follows some practices, in particular, the prohibition on voting and celebrating birthdays.

Politics

Serena Williams is prohibited from voting as Jehovah's Witness but she once stated that if she would vote she would cast her vote for Barack Obama.

Views

Serena Williams often expresses her views on various issues through social media. In 2016, the tennis star supported Black Lives Matter via her Facebook account. In her 2016 open letter, published in Porter Magazine, Williams touched the questions of gender equality in sports, referring to her own experience in that field. She expressed the opinion that male and female contributions to the sports are often recognized in an unequal way. She also put the focus on equal pay in tennis.

Williams is involved in different charity activities. The Serena Williams Foundation is aimed to support disadvantaged children in the United States and abroad. The construction of the Serena Williams Secondary School in Matooni, Kenya, was sponsored by the Foundation in 2008, as well as the construction of the Salt Marsh Primary School for Jamaican youth in Trelawny Parish, Jamaica, in cooperation with Helping Hands Jamaica in 2016. Serena and her sister collaborate with the First Serve Miami Foundation which helps disadvantaged youth to learn tennis. Williams has been an International Goodwill Ambassador with UNICEF and has contributed to UNICEF's Schools for Asia campaign.

Quotations: "When I was a little girl, in California, my father and my mother wanted me to play tennis. And now I'm here, with 20 Grand Slam titles."

"I'm afraid I'm already a shopaholic. Fortunately, I'm no longer in denial, and the first step to recovering is getting out of denial."

"I've always said that I'm insatiable."

"You never fail if you try. You only fail if you don't try. Go out there and try whatever you are dreaming of!"

"For all their practice, preparation and confidence, even the best competitors in every sport have a voice of doubt inside them that says they are not good enough. I am lucky that whatever fear I have inside me, my desire to win is always stronger."

Personality

Having English as her mother tongue, Serena Williams also speaks conversational French and can use Spanish and Italian to some extent.

Physical Characteristics: Serena Williams is 1.75 meters tall. She is right-handed.

Quotes from others about the person

• Martina Hingis, former professional tennis player: "Being black only helps them. Many times they get sponsors because they are black. And they have had a lot of advantages because they can always say, 'It's racism.' They can always come back and say, 'Because we are this colour, things happen.'"

Interests

• watching movies and football, reading, acting, talking on the phone, family and friends

• Writers

  Maya Angelou

• Music & Bands

  Mariah Carey, Brandy, Katy Perry, Shawn Mendes

Connections

Serena Williams was romantically involved with rapper Common from 2007 to 2010. She made an appearance in his music video for "I Want You" song in 2007.

On December 30, 2016, Williams went public with the engagement to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The wedding ceremony was held in New Orleans on November 16 of the next year. Beyonce, legendary Vogue magazine editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, Kim Kardashian, actress Eva Longoria and singer Ciara were among eminent guests. Shortly before the ceremony, in September, Williams had given birth to a daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr.

Father:

Richard Williams

(born February 14, 1942)

Richard Williams, in full Richard Dove Williams Jr., was the first and the main coach in Serena's life.

Mother:

Oracene Price

(born April 3, 1952)

Dubbed "Brandy", Oracene Price was a kind of a mental coach for Serena and Venus helping them to develop discipline and self-esteem.

Sister:

Venus Williams

(born June 17, 1980)

Venus Williams, in full Venus Ebony Starr Williams, is one of the greatest grass-court tennis female players.

An Olympic Gold Medalist in singles, Williams has won 5 Wimbledon Championships, 2 U.S. Opens, 2 Australian Opens and a WTA championship.

In doubles, she has 6 Wimbledon, 2 U.S. Open, 2 French Open, and 4 Australian Open titles. She is also a three-time Olympic Champion in doubles.

husband:

Alexis Ohanian

(April 24, 1983)

Alexis Ohanian, in full Alexis Kerry Ohanian, is co-founder of Reddit website.

Daughter:

Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr

(born September 1, 2017)

ex-boyfriend:

Common

(born March 13, 1972)

Common, byname of Lonnie Rashid Lynn, is an American rapper, actor and author. His debut album, Can I Borrow a Dollar?, was released in 1992.

step-sister:

Yetunde Price

(born August 9, 1972 – died September 14, 2003)

The eldest step-sister of Serena, Yetunde Price, in full Yetunde Hawanya Tara Price, was the personal assistant of her eminent sister. Yetunde was murdered in Compton, California in the fall of 2003.

step-sister:

Lyndrea Price

step-sister:

Isha Price

Friend:

Priyanka Chopra

(born July 18, 1982)

A famous Indian actress, singer, and film producer, Priyanka Chopra started her career in 2002 and since then has appeared in more than sixty films and also played a leading role in the famous TV show Quantico. As a recording artist, she has released three singles. She is also the founder of the production company Purple Pebble Pictures, which released the acclaimed Marathi film Ventilator.

Friend:

Tiger Woods

(December 30, 1975)

Woods is an American professional golfer whose achievements to date rank him among the most successful golfers of all time.

Friend:

Queen Latifah

(born March 18, 1970)

Queen Latifah, alias of Dana Elaine Owens, is an American musician and actress. Her success in the late 1980s started a wave of female rappers and helped rethink the traditionally male genre. She later turned to a career of an actress.

Friend:

Meghan, Duchess of Sussex

(born August 4, 1981)

A former actress, Megan Markle, by birth Rachel Meghan Markle, is a member of the British royal family as the wife of Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, and a philanthropist.

coach:

Rick Macci

(born December 7, 1954)

Active in tennis as a player from 1970, Rick Macci is a United States Professional Tennis Association Master Professional and seven-time USPTA national coach of the year.

The USPTA Florida Hall of Fame inductee, he has trained other four number one tennis players in addition to Serena Williams: Andy Roddick, Jennifer Capriati, Maria Sharapova, and Venus Williams.

References

• Serena Williams: The Inspiring Story of One of Tennis' Greatest Legends The inspirational story of one of tennis' premier legends from Clayton Geoffreys.
  2017
• Who are Venus and Serena Williams? The dynamic story of the Williams sisters, both top-ranked professional tennis players.
  2003
• Sisters and Champions: The True Story of Venus and Serena Williams An inspiring picture book sports biography about two of the greatest female tennis players of all-time! Venus and Serena Williams: Best friends. Sisters. Champions.
  2018
• Serena Williams: Tennis Star A biography of the tennis player from Kristen Rajczak Nelson.
  2016
• Serena Williams: Legends in Sports The amazing achievements of sports legend Serena Williams are discussed in the exciting biography from Matt Christopher.
  2017
• Serena Williams J. D. Rockefeller's Book Club volume on the tennis legend.
  2016
• Serena Williams The energizing book tells Williams' inspiring story, from learning to play tennis along with her sister Venus from their father in Compton, California, to Serena's record-setting 23 individual Grand Slam titles.
  2018
• Serena Williams' Instagram
• Serena Williams' Facebook
• Serena Williams' Twitter