Williams, Serena

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Serena Williams

1981-

American tennis player

Together with her older sister, Venus Williams , Serena Williams has taken the tennis world by storm, soaring to the top of a game traditionally dominated by white players. For Serena, 2002 was particularly sweet. The year didn't get off to a particularly auspicious start. A sprained ankle forced Williams to miss the Australian Open in January 2002, but things brightened up considerably for the remainder of the year. She won seven of her next 12 events, winning three of the four 2002 Grand Slam tournaments—the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open—and snatching from sister Venus the number one world women's ranking. In recognition of her impressive performance in 2002, Williams, along with Australian Lleyton Hewitt, was named International Tennis Federation world champion in December. As 2003 dawned, Williams became only the fifth woman in tennis history to hold all four Grand Slam titles, beating Venus in the finals of the Australian Open. Of Williams' brilliance on the tennis court, tennis great Chris Evert , told People : "Serena really is too good. I'd like to see some players get close to athleticism, and I don't see it yet on the horizon."

Born in Saginaw, Michigan

Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, on September 26, 1981, 15 months after older sister Venus. The youngest of the five daughters of Richard and Oracene (nicknamed Brandi) Williams grew up in the gritty Los Angeles suburb of Compton, where her father ran a private security firm. Richard Williams, long a fan of televised tennis competition, resolved that he would teach all of his daughters to play the game. The three oldest Williams girls showed only minimal interest in and little aptitude for tennis, but both Serena and Venus showed promised from the very start. Of her younger sisters' enthusiasm for the game, older sister Lyndrea told Sport magazine: "Venus and Serena took to tennis as soon as rackets were put in their hands." Their father taught his daughters on the public tennis courts of Compton. Both girls' skills developed rapidly, and by the age of four-and-a-half Serena entered her first tournament. Over the next five years, according to her father, she won 46 of the 49 tournaments she entered and succeeded Venus as the number one player in Southern California's competitive age-12-and-under rankings. It was not long before both girls began winning national attention in the form of favorable coverage in both broadcast and print media, invitations to prestigious tennis camps, and offers of lucrative product endorsement deals.

In 1991 Richard Williams, who has served as both coach and manager to his youngest daughters from the start, pulled Serena and Venus out of the junior tournament circuit, preferring to shelter them from the competitive pressures of the tour. Instead he opted to send his girls to teaching pro Ric Macci's tennis academy in Delray Beach, Florida. From 1991 until 1995 the Williams girls studied with Macci, who had also worked with Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce . While studying tennis with Macci, the sisters were home-schooled by family members. After a few years, they were enrolled at Driftwood Academy, a private, 30-student high school in Lake Park, Florida. In 1993 the Williams family moved from Compton to a new home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Serena graduated from Driftwood in August 1999 with a B-plus average.

Father Takes Charge of Career

After the Williams sisters left Macci's tennis academy in 1995, their father, with the help of his wife, once again took over the responsibility of coaching the girls. Even more importantly, he devoted a great deal of his time and energy to promoting his daughters, publishing a newsletter about the girls' background and training. He also used the newsletter to blow his own horn, claiming that he had come to be known as "'King Richard' … Master and Lord of the ghettos in Compton, CA." Of Williams' blatant self-promotion, Julia Reed wrote in Vogue that he "has a reputation for being a bit pompous and not just a little bit irritating. But he is also wickedly funny."

Serena turned professional in October 1995, making her debut at the Bell Challenge in Vanier, Quebec, an event not sanctioned by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). She lost quickly to her opponent, a virtual unknown. For the next few years, she lived in the shadow of Venus, who shot up into the top 10 in women's tennis, while Serena as of the end of 1996 had been unable to break into the top 500. In 1997, however, things began to look up for the youngest Williams, who began the year ranked at number 453 and before long rose to number 307. Later in the year she jumped to number 100 among women players in the space of a single week. At the Ameritech Cup tournament in Chicago late in 1997, she upset number four Monica Seles and number seven Mary Pierce before losing to third-ranked Lindsay Davenport . Williams' wins over Seles and Pierce made her the lowest ranked player ever to defeat two top-ten players in a single tournament. An injury forced Serena to pull out of the doubles competition with sister Venus.

Enters First Grand Slam Tourney

At the age of 16, in January of 1998, Williams entered her first Grand Slam tournament—the Australian Open—after winning a qualifying match. Facing off against second-seeded Davenport, who had defeated her at the Ameritech Cup in late 1997, she turned the tables, handily winning the match. Venus shocked top-ranked Martina Hingis . When the two sisters met on the court in the second round of the finals, Venus carried the day, taking the match 7-6, 6-1. Just to show there were no hard feelings, a smiling Serena and Venus posed for photographers after the match.

Chronology

1981	Born in Saginaw, Michigan, on September 26
1991-95	Studies tennis at Ric Macci's academy in Delray Beach, Florida
1995	Makes professional debut at Bell Challenge in Vanier, Quebec, Canada
1998	Enters Australian Open, her first Grand Slam tournament
1999	Graduates from Driftwood Academy of Lake Park, Florida, in August

Related Biography: Father/Coach Richard Williams

The biggest booster of Serena and Venus Williams is their father, who has also served as their coach and manager from the very beginning of their tennis careers. In fact, it's doubtful either Williams sister would be playing tennis at all were it not for Richard Williams' fervent belief that he could raise his daughters to be champions on the court. Working with the three older sisters of Venus and Serena, Williams had had little success, but his two youngest girls took to the game from the start.

Despite his undeniable success in coaxing and coaching Venus and Serena to positions of dominance in the sport, Williams continues to come under fire for some of his unorthodox techniques but mostly for what he has to say about his perceptions of racism and the stuffiness of the people who run the game. He also shows no lack of confidence in his ability to guide his daughters to tennis stardom. He admitted however, to Kevin Chappell of Ebony that sometimes the criticism hurts. "When people criticize you, I don't care how much you say it doesn't bother you, it does. It bothers you when people criticize you, especially when you're doing the best that you can do. Because once you are doing the best you can do, you realize there is nothing else you can do. They are criticizing you, and you can't fight back, you can't make a noise. It's almost like someone has beaten you dead. It's somewhat disturbing."

When Serena, his younger daughter with former wife Oracene, was still quite young, Williams moved his family from Saginaw, Michigan, to the dicey neighborhoods of Compton, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He taught his girls the game on the public tennis courts of Compton, an area so riddled with gang violence that the girls had to be schooled in how to dodge errant bullets. In 1991, he sent Serena and Venus off to Florida to train at the tennis academy of Ric Macci in Delray Beach. Both girls turned professional by the age of 14 and have been guided by their father through every step of their careers.

After losing her match with Venus at the Australian Open in January 1998, Serena trailed her sister in the rankings, but she was the first of the two to win a Grand Slam title. Still only 16 years old, she teamed with Max Mirnyi of Belarus to win the mixed doubles tournament at Wimbledon in July of 1998. Although the spotlight was still trained on Venus, more and more observers of the game began to predict that Serena, with her power, eventually would overshadow her older sister. By August of 1998, Serena's ranking had improved to number 21. Whatever the fans or critics were saying, nothing seemed to have any effect on the close relationship between the sisters. That relationship—seemingly strengthened by their occasional face-to-face meetings on the court—captured the interest of the media, which ran numerous features about the sisters. Away from tennis, the two loved to gossip about boys and shop, the latter pastime easily

financed by the sisters' lucrative product endorsement deals. In 1998 Serena signed a $12 million deal with Puma, helping her to keep pace with Venus, who had an equally impressive deal with Reebok.

Beats Mauresmo to Win First WTA Title

Williams won the first WTA title of her career early in 1999, overpowering Amelie Mauresmo of France 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 in the Open Gaz de France tournament in Paris. In besting Mauresmo, Serena became the first American ever to win that tournament. Making the victory even sweeter for the Williams family was an almost simultaneous win by Venus in the IGA Super Thrift Tennis Classic in Oklahoma City. Serena followed her Open Gaz victory with a win over Steffi Graf at the Evert Cup tournament in Indian Wells, California, the very next week, grabbing her second WTA title in a row. During a three-week period ending with her defeat of Graf in California, Serena won 11 consecutive matches. In an interview with Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated, Williams made it clear who she saw as her main competitor. "Whatever my potential is, I want to reach it now," she told Silver. "And if I do, I see Venus as my biggest competition."

The head-to-head sibling rivalry of which Serena spoke was not long in coming. On March 28, 1999, Venus beat her younger sister 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 at the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Florida. The Williams faceoff marked the first time in more than a century that two sisters met each other in a tennis tournament finals match. The previous match between sisters had come in 1884 when 19-year-old Maud Watson beat older sister Lillian, 26, at the first women's Wimbledon. Serena's loss to Venus at Key Biscayne was not really the first time she'd fallen to her older sister but actually her third consecutive loss to Venus, the others coming at the Australian Open and Italian Open in 1998. Despite these defeats, Serena was moving up impressively in the world tennis rankings, finding herself at number 10 by mid-April 1999.

Wins First Singles Title

Later in 1999 the Williams sisters teamed up to win the doubles title at the French Open. The sweetest victory came for seventh-ranked Serena at the U.S. Open in 1999 when she became the lowest seed to win the women's title since 1968. In taking her first Grand Slam singles title, Williams became only the second African-American woman to do so. The win boosted Serena's world ranking to number four, the highest ranking of her career. Although she'd started out way back in the rankings, Serena now found herself running neck and neck with Venus. On the heels of Serena's singles victory at the U.S. Open, the sisters teamed up again to win the doubles title at the U.S. Open, making them the first African American team to do so in the history of the tournament.

In July 2000, Venus defeated Serena in the semi-finals at Wimbledon. Crushed by the loss to her older sister, Williams left the court in tears, as Venus attempted to comfort her. Serena bounced back to join her older sister to take the women's doubles title at Wimbledon, marking the first time the event had been won by a sister team. In 2000 singles competition, Serena took her first singles title of the year by defeating Denisa Chladkova of Czechoslovakia at the Faber Grand Prix. Perhaps the high point of the year for both Serena and Venus came at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Team Williams defeated the Dutch team of Miriam Oremans and Kristie Boogert, 6-1, 6-1, to take the gold medal in women's doubles.

Williams won her first singles title of 2001 at Indian Wells, California, with a victory over Kim Clijsters, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. At the Australian Open that year, she advanced to the quarter-finals, where she fell to Martina Hingis, who later defeated Venus as well. In doubles competition, the Williams sisters once again triumphed. Later that year Serena was stopped by Jennifer Capriati in the quarter-finals of both the French Open and Wimbledon. At the U.S. Open, Serena and Venus faced off against each other in the women's finals, where Venus carried the day, winning the match 6-2, 6-4.

What was to be the brightest season yet of Serena's tennis career started off on a decidedly unpromising note. Williams was forced to sit out the Australian Open in January 2002 because of a sprained ankle. But the injury was not to keep her down for long. Serena won seven of her next 12 events, replacing Venus as the number one-ranked woman in tennis. In an interview with People, she said: "I'm physically strong but mentally stronger. I think if you have the attitude that you can do anything, you really can." Williams proved conclusively that she had the right attitude by taking three of the big four Grand Slam titles—the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open—in 2002. The following year got off to a promising start, as a healthy Serena nailed the last of the four Grand Slam tournamments for the season, beating sister Venus in the finals of the Australian Open.

Still in her very early 20s, Serena Williams has made an indelible impression on the world of tennis, quickly moving up through the ranks of the game to draw even with older sister Venus and then to moving into the number one ranking. Only time will tell what lies ahead for Williams, but of one thing she is certain: "Family comes first, no matter how many times we play each other," she told Sports Illustrated. "Nothing will come between me and my sister."

Awards and Accomplishments

1997	Becomes lowest ranked player (no. 304) to defeat two top 10 players (Mary Pierce and Monica Seles) in a single tournament
1999	Wins first WTA title by beating Amelie Mauresmo in Open Gaz de France
1999	Wins first Grand Slam singles title at U.S. Open; teams with Venus to win U.S. Open doubles title
2000	Advances to semi-finals at Wimbledon but falls to sister Venus
2002	Defeats Venus to win singles title at French Open
2002	Wins Italian Open with defeat of Justine Henin
2002	Wins Wimbledon singles title
2002	Wins U.S. Open singles title
2003	Wins Australian Open singles title.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: c/o Women's Tennis Association, 133 First St. NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33701.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

"Serena Williams." Complete Marquis Who's Who. Marquis Who's Who, 2001.

"Serena Williams." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 20. Gale Group, 1998.

"Serena Williams." Newsmakers 1999, Issue 4. Gale Group, 1999.

"Serena Williams." Who's Who Among African Americans, 14th ed. Gale Group, 2001.

Periodicals

Chappell, Kevin. "Richard Williams: Venus and Serena's Father Whips the Pros and Makes His Family No. 1 in Tennis." Ebony, (June 2000).

Fendrich, Howard. "Little Sister Gets Her 'Serena Slam.'" AP Online, (September 8, 2000): 128.

Harris, Beth. "Serena Williams Advances to Final in WTA Championships; Venus Williams Injured." AP Worldstream, (November 11, 2002).

"Hewitt, Serena Williams Named 2002 World Champions." AP Worldstream, (December 3, 2002).

O'Connor, Ian. "Richard Williams Getting the Last Laugh." USA Today, (September 6, 2002).

Price, S.L. "A Grand Occasion: While Serena Williams Blitzed the Women's Field, Pete Sampras Won His Fifth U.S. Open and Left No Doubt That He's the Greatest Men's Player Ever." Sports Illustrated, (September 16, 2002): 52.

"Serena Williams: Queen of the Court." People, (December 30, 2002): 99.