Serena Williams (American Tennis Player)

Biography:

Birthday: 26th September 1981

Father's Name: Richard Williams

Mother's Name: Oracene Price

Born In: Saginaw, Michigan, United States

Nationality: American

Introduction:

In the year of September 26th, 1981, Serena Williams was in Saginaw, Michigan, U.S. She is an American tennis player who transformed women’s tennis with her compelling class of playing and who received 23 Grand Slam singles titles, which is a lot more than any other man or woman at the matches of the open era.

On her sixth match, she caught the ranking for 186 weeks consecutively, reaching to the record that was earlier set by Steffi Graf. Overall, she has been ranked 1 for 319 weeks, which is the third in the Open Era among female athletes after the standings of Graf and Martina Navratilova.

Serena started progressing and mastering tennis from her father in Los Angeles within the public courts when she finally made it to her professional career in the year 1995, which was exactly the one year after her sister Venus started her career. Holding great serves and groundstrokes and excellent athleticism, the sisters soon brought much attention to their games. After watching their performance, people prophesied Venus as the first Williams sister to get a Grand Slam singles title. But Serena falsified the prediction winning the first title in1999 U.S. Open. In the same tournament, the sisters got the doubles event, and, throughout their careers, the two teamed and worked together for in total, 14 Grand Slam doubles titles.

Serena is the one who keeps the most Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, as well as mixed doubles combined among all the active players. She is the most recent female member to have won all the four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously in the year 2002-03 till 2014-15 and the third player to accomplish this achievement twice, after Rod Laver and Graf. In the year 2015, she created the record of winning the Grand Slam title on hard, clay, as well as grass surface in just one year. She has been engaged playing together with her elder sister Venus, who is the most recent player to carry all the four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously.

Early Life and Career:

As a daughter of Oracene Price and Richard Williams, Serena was born in Saginaw, Michigan, as the youngest of Price's all five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, and the full older sister Venus. Her list of siblings also includes seven paternal half-siblings. During their younghood times, the family relocated to Compton, California, where Williams began playing tennis for the first time at the age of just four years. Her father, Richard Williams, home-schooled her sister, Venus, and Serena. Her father and her mother used to be her official tennis coach. Other mentors who assisted Serena to learn the game included another Richard Williams, who was a Compton man who also shared her father's name and would go with her elder sister Venus and Serena herself to Tennis/Tutorial Academy.

Richard obstructed sending his two daughters to the national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was ten. Due to her young age, he wanted them to go slowly and also keep track of all their school work. Stories of racism also pushed this encounter, as Richard heard white parents disparagingly talk of the Williams sisters during tournaments. This moment was the same time when Williams had a 46–3 record for the United States Tennis Association junior tour, and they were ranked number one among all the "under-10 players" in Florida. In 1995, when Serena was completing her ninth grade, her father took his daughters out of Macci's academy and, after which, both the sisters took over, all the training and learning practices at their home.

Personal Life:

In the year 1993, when Serena was nine, she and her family relocated from Compton to West Palm Beach, Florida, where she could be a part of the tennis academy of Rick Macci. Other than Serena's parents and some coaches, Rick began to coach Serena as well. Macci sometimes used to have conflicts with Williams's father, but always respected the fact that he treated and administered his daughters like kids, and always allowed them to be little girls they wanted to be. 

The 2000 Olympic Games, which were held in Sydney, Australia, Serena, and Venus, acquired gold medals in the doubles event. After this phase, Serena went through several years of inconsistent play. But later, she asserted herself in the year 2002 and came up with the titles of French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, beating her own elder sister, Venus, in the finals of each of those tournaments.

Known for her aggressive and deterministic approach, Serena got the Australian Open in 2003 and thus developed a career Grand Slam by holding won all four of the slam’s component tournaments. In the same year, later, she also won at victorious at Wimbledon. Here, both her wins came in the Grand Slam when she won against her sister in 2003 in the finals.

In 2005 Serena gained the Australian Open again. Backed by injury in the following year, she bounced back in the year 2007 to win her next and the third Australian Open. Serena and Venus received their second doubles tennis gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. In the same year, later, Serena won the U.S.

Achievements:

• Grand Slam tournaments
  
• She became the second African-American woman to win a Grand Slam title in the year 1999 at 17 years old.
  
• She won the Australian Open doubles championship with Venus Williams in the year 2001.
  
• She became the fifth pair to achieve a Career Doubles Grand Slam and the only pair to receive a Career Doubles Golden Slam.
  
• At the Roland Garros final in the year 2002, she became the first younger sister to beat her older sister in a Grand Slam singles tournament.

Prize Money and Earnings:

• She became the first woman to win US$6,000,000 in prize money in a single year, which was in the year 2009.
  
• She was also titled as the woman to win US$12,000,000 in prize money in a single year, which was in the year 2013. She is the only woman to win US$40,000,000 in career prize money in the year 2012.
  
• Her net winning has reached US$40,000,000, which is the most among all the woman athletes.