Facts about Serena Williams

Serena Williams is 42 years old
Best known as: The dominant pro tennis player who has won 23 major titles

     

Serena Williams Biography

Serena Williams dominated women’s professional tennis for two decades after she and her sister Venus became stars of the sport in the late 1990s. She has won 23 major singles titles, the most in the modern era and just one behind Margaret Court‘s all-time record of 24 majors.

Serena Williams was a child prodigy who began playing tennis before she reached kindergarten. She is Black, which was a rarity in pro tennis when Serena and Venus reached the pros in the 1990s. Serena quickly became known for her determination, powerful game and flashy fashion sense. She was a year younger than Venus and (at 5’10”) about three inches shorter, but became the first sister to win a major tournament by claiming the singles title at the 1999 U.S. Open.

Serena Williams went on to eclipse Venus as the leading women’s tennis player of the early 2000s; in 2002-03 she won the “Serena Slam” by holding all four grand slam titles at once: the 2002 French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles, and the 2003 Australian Open. Her full list of major singles titles: Wimbledon in 2002, 2003, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016; the French Open in 2002, 2013 and 2015 (with a full 11 years between the first two wins); the Australian Open in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2015 and 2017; and the U.S. Open in 1999, 2002, 2008, 2012, 2013 and 2014.

Serena Williams won a gold medal in women’s singles at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, matching the gold won by her sister Venus at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

Extra credit

Serena Williams completed a second “Serena Slam” by winning the 2014 U.S. Open and the 2015 Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon. She came close to winning the actual Grand Slam in 2015, but she lost to Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the U.S. Open… The only women ever to win the official Grand Slam of all four singles tournaments in one year are Margaret Court (in 1970) and Steffi Graf (in 1988). Maureen Connolly also won the four major tournaments in 1953, in the so-called “pre-Open” era, when Wimbledon was joined by the Australian Championships, the French Championships and the U.S. Championships… Serena Williams’ win in 2015 made her the oldest woman ever to win singles at Wimbledon, at 33 years and 289 days.  The next year she won again, at age 34 years and 295 days.


     

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