Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981[1]) is an American professional tennis player and former world No. 1. She has won 23 major singles titles, the most by any man or woman in the Open Era. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) ranked her world No. 1 in singles on eight separate occasions between 2002 and 2017. She reached the No. 1 ranking for the first time on July 8, 2002. On her sixth occasion, she held the ranking for 186 consecutive weeks, tying the record set by Steffi Graf. In total, she has been No. 1 for 319 weeks, which ranks third in the Open Era among female players behind Graf and Martina Navratilova.
Williams holds the most Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles combined among active players. Her 39 Grand Slam titles put her joint-third on the all-time list and second in the Open Era: 23 in singles, 14 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent female player to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15) and the third player to achieve this twice, after Rod Laver and Graf. She is also the most recent player to have won a Grand Slam title on each surface (hard, clay and grass) in one calendar year (2015). She is also, together with her older sister Venus, the most recent player to have held all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).
Williams has won a record of 13 Grand Slam singles titles on hard court. Williams holds the Open Era record for most titles won at the Australian Open (7) and shares the Open Era record for most titles won at the US Open with Chris Evert (6). She also holds the record for the most women's singles matches won at majors with 349 matches.
Williams has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, all with her sister Venus, and the pair are unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals.[4] As a team, she and Venus have the third most women's doubles Grand Slam titles, behind the 18 titles of Natasha Zvereva (14 with Gigi Fernández) and the record 20 titles won by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver. Williams is also a five-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships in the singles division.[5] She has also 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.[6] The arrival of the Williams sisters has been credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour.[7][8][9][10] She is ranked at No. 9 in the world by the WTA as of January 13, 2020.[11]
Earning almost $29 million in prize money and endorsements, Williams was the highest paid female athlete in 2016.[12] She repeated this feat in 2017 when she was the only woman on Forbes' list of the 100 highest paid athletes with $27 million in prize money and endorsements. She has won the 'Laureus Sportswoman of the Year' award four times (2003, 2010, 2016, 2018), and in December 2015, she was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.[13] In 2019, she was ranked 63rd in Forbes' World's Highest-Paid Athletes list
Early life
Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, to Oracene Price and Richard Williams, and is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, and full older sister Venus.[1] She also has at least seven paternal half-siblings.[15][16] When the children were young, the family moved to Compton, California, where Williams started playing tennis at the age of four.[17][18] Her father home schooled Serena and her sister, Venus.[19][20] While he and subsequently her mother have been the official coaches, other mentors who helped her learn the game included Richard Williams, a Compton man who shared her father's name and would go on to found The Venus and Serena Williams Tennis/Tutorial Academy.[21]
Williams sisters at a Pam Shriver event in Baltimore, 1993
When Williams was nine, she and her family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach, Florida,[17] so that she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci; Macci began to provide additional coaching. Macci did not always agree with Williams's father, but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls".[22] Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, since he wanted them to go slowly and to focus on school work. Experiences of racism also drove this experience, as Richard Williams had heard white parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments.[23] At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked number one among under-10 players in Florida.[24] In 1995, when Williams was in the ninth grade, her father 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."[24]
Playing style
Williams is primarily a baseline player, and her game is built around taking immediate control of rallies with her powerful and consistent serve,[25] return of serve, and forceful groundstrokes from both her forehand and backhand swings. Williams's forehand is considered to be among the most powerful shots in the women's game,[26] as is her double-handed backhand. Williams strikes her backhand groundstroke using an open stance, and uses the same open stance for her forehand. Williams's aggressive play, a "high risk" style, is balanced in part by her serve, which most say is the greatest in women's tennis history.[27][28][29] She consistently projects great pace and placement with her serves; in the 2013 Australian Open, she had a peak serve speed of 128.6 mph (207.0 km/h) which is the third fastest all-time among female players (only Venus's 129 mph[30] and Sabine Lisicki's 131 mph[31] recorded speeds are faster). What makes her serve even more deadly is her ball placement and her ability to consistently place powerful shots with great accuracy.[32] At the 2012 Championships at Wimbledon, she hit a women's tournament record of 102 aces, which was more than any of the men hit during the two weeks, a rarity given that aces are more common in the men's game.[33] Williams also possesses a very solid and powerful overhead. Although many think of Williams as only an offensive player,[who?] she also plays a strong defensive game.[34][35][36] She has stated that her favorite surface is clay because it gives her extra time to set up her shots.[37]
Williams is known for producing exceptional comebacks, particularly on the Grand Slam level. She has won three Grand Slam singles titles after saving match points (the 2003 Australian Open semifinal versus Kim Clijsters, the 2005 Australian Open semifinal versus Maria Sharapova, and the 2009 Wimbledon semifinal versus Elena Dementieva), a feat achieved more often than any other player in history.[38] She also came back from a 3–5 deficit in the third set against Kim Clijsters in the 1999 US Open en route to her first Grand Slam singles title.[39] In the 2012 US Open final against Victoria Azarenka, she was down 3–5 in the third set and found herself two points away from losing the match. Williams then proceeded to win the next 4 games and defeated Azarenka.[40] In the semifinals of the 2015 French Open, Williams was ill and barely able to walk during changeovers, yet beat her opponent, Timea Bacsinszky, 6–0 in the third set.[41] Another improbable win occurred in the third round of the 2015 Wimbledon Championships, when she recovered from two breaks of service in the third set to defeat Great Britain's number-one female player, Heather Watson.[42] Williams has bounced back from a set down to win in 37 Grand Slam matches.[43]
In recent years,[when?] Williams has shown an ability to serve aces at critical moments. One of these instances was the 2013 French Open final, were in the last game of the match, she fired three aces, including one which clocked at 123 mph (198 km/h) on match point.[44][45] She repeated the feat similarly against Angelique Kerber in the finals of the 2016 Wimbledon Championships[citation needed] to tie the Open Era record for Grand Slam singles titles.[citation needed] Williams fired three un-returnable serves in her final service game[citation needed] before winning the match and the title with a casual forehand volley on the next point.[citation needed]
Professional career
1995–1998: Professional debut
Williams's parents wanted their daughter to wait until she was 16 to participate in professional tournaments.[46] In 1995 just after turning 14, Williams planned to make her professional debut as a wild-card entry in the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland, California, but was denied by the WTA due to age-eligibility restrictions of the organization.[47] She subsequently filed an antitrust lawsuit against the women's tour, but withdrew it at the behest of her parents.[47] Her first professional event was in October 1995 at the Bell Challenge in Quebec,[46][48] where she used a wild-card entry to circumvent age-eligibility rules.[46] She lost in the first round of qualifying to then 18-year-old American Annie Miller, winning just two games.[49]
Williams did not play a tournament in 1996.[citation needed] The following year, she lost in the qualifying rounds of three tournaments,[citation needed] before winning her first main-draw match in November at the Ameritech Cup Chicago.[50] Ranked No. 304, she upset No. 7 Mary Pierce, and No. 4 Monica Seles,[51][52] recording her first career wins over top 10 players and becoming the lowest-ranked player in the Open Era to defeat two top-10 opponents in one tournament.[1] She ultimately lost in the semifinals to No. 5 Lindsay Davenport.[53] She finished 1997 ranked No. 99.[54]
Williams began 1998 at the Medibank International Sydney.[55] As a qualifier ranked No. 96,[56] she defeated No. 3 Davenport in the quarterfinals,[56] before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals.[57] Williams made her debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open,[58] where she defeated sixth-seeded Irina Spîrlea in the first round,[59] before losing to her sister, Venus, in the second round in the first professional match for the sisters.[59][55] Williams reached six other quarterfinals during the year, but lost all of them,[60] including her first match against No. 1-ranked Martina Hingis at the Lipton International Players Championships in Key Biscayne,[61] and her second match against Venus at the Italian Open in Rome.[60] She failed to reach the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam tournament the remainder of the year,[citation needed] losing in the fourth round of the French Open to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario,[62] and the third round of the US Open to Spîrlea.[63] She withdrew from Wimbledon two games into a match with Virginia Ruano Pascual, after straining her calf muscle during the first set.[64] She did win the mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open with Max Mirnyi, completing the Williams family's sweep of the 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slam tournaments. Williams won her first professional title in doubles in Oklahoma City with Venus, becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA title.[1] Serena and her sister won two more doubles titles together during the year. Williams finished the year ranked No. 20 in singles.[citation needed]
Battle of the sexes: Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters
Main article: Battle of the Sexes (tennis)
A 16-year-old Serena competed in a tennis "Battle of the Sexes", along with her sister Venus Williams, against Karsten Braasch at the 1998 Australian Open.[65] At the time Braasch was 203rd in the ATP rankings. The Williams sisters had claimed they could beat any man outside the top 200, and accepted his challenge. Braasch beat both Williams sisters, playing a single set against each. The score vs Serena was 6–1 and vs Venus 6–2.[66] Braasch said afterward, "500 and above, no chance." The sisters later tweaked the number to beating men outside the top 350.[67]
1999–2001: Becoming a top-10 player
Williams lost in the third round of the 1999 Australian Open to Sandrine Testud. A month later, Williams won her first professional singles title when she defeated Amélie Mauresmo in the final of the Open Gaz de France in Paris. With Venus also winning the IGA Superthrift Classic in Memphis, Tennessee that day, the pair became the first sisters to win professional tournaments in the same week.[68] In March of that year, at the Evert Cup in California, Williams won her first Tier I title, defeating Steffi Graf in the final. Soon afterward at the Miami Masters, Williams had her 16-match winning streak ended by her sister in the first all-sister singles final in WTA history,[55] and she then made her top-10 debut, at No. 9. She then lost in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open[69] and the German Open,[70] and the third round of the French Open,[71] where she and Venus won the women's doubles title.[55] Williams then missed Wimbledon because of injury. When she returned to the tour, Williams won a Fed Cup singles match and then won the JPMorgan Chase Open in Los Angeles, beating Julie Halard-Decugis in the final. She then defeated in succession Grand Slam champions Kim Clijsters, Conchita Martínez, Monica Seles, and defending champion Lindsay Davenport to reach the US Open final, where she defeated No. 1, Hingis, to become the second African-American woman, after Althea Gibson in 1958, to win a Grand Slam singles tournament.[1] The Williams sisters also won the doubles title at this tournament. To complete her 1999 season, Williams won a doubles match in the Fed Cup final against Russia. Williams ended the year ranked No. 4 in just her second full year on the main tour.[citation needed]
Williams started 2000 by losing in the fourth round of the Australian Open to Elena Likhovtseva. She failed to defend her titles in Paris and Indian Wells, although she did win the Faber Grand Prix in Germany. Soon afterwards, Williams missed the French Open because of injury. She returned from injury at the Wimbledon Championships, where she lost to Venus in the semifinals, but the pair won the doubles title at the event. Williams successfully defended her title in Los Angeles, defeating Davenport in the final. She reached the final of the Du Maurier Open where an injury forced her to retire from her match with Hingis. Her defense of the US Open title ended when she lost in the quarterfinals to Davenport. Williams teamed with Venus to win the gold medal in doubles at the Sydney Olympics that September. She ended the year winning the Toyota Princess Cup in Japan and she finished the year ranked No. 6.[citation needed]
Williams began 2001 losing to Martina Hingis in the quarterfinals of the Medibank International in Sydney and the Australian Open in Melbourne. Williams and her sister won the doubles title at the latter tournament, becoming only the fifth doubles team in history to win all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles during their career, completing a "Career Grand Slam". Her next event was the Pacific Life Open in California, where she defeated Kim Clijsters in the final. The final was marred by the behavior of the crowd toward Williams and her family. Crowd members were incensed at the perceived match-fixing of games involving the family after Venus withdrew before their semifinal. Neither Williams nor her sister entered the tournament for fourteen years until Williams entered in 2015 as a wildcard (and the top seed).[72] The following week at the Ericsson Open in Miami, Williams lost to Jennifer Capriati in the quarterfinals. She then lost in the quarterfinals to Capriati at both the French Open and Wimbledon Championships. That was the fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament at which Williams had exited in the quarterfinals. During the North American hard-court season, she lost in the quarterfinals of Los Angeles against Monica Seles, then captured her second title of the year at the Rogers Cup, defeating Capriati in the final. Williams reached the final of the 2001 US Open, losing to sister Venus. That was the first Grand Slam tournament final contested by two sisters during the Open Era. At the 2001 season-ending Tour Championships, Williams won the championship by walkover when Davenport withdrew before the start of the final due to a knee injury. Williams finished 2001 at No. 6 for the second straight year.
2002–2003: "Serena Slam"
Early 2002, injury saw Williams retire from the semifinal at the Medibank International Sydney and later withdraw from the Australian Open
Returning from injury, Williams won her first title of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona, defeating No. 2 Jennifer Capriati, in the final. She then won the Miami Masters for the first time, becoming one of three players in the Open Era to defeat the world's top 3 ranked players at one tournament,[1] after beating No. 3, Martina Hingis, in the quarterfinals, No. 2 Venus in the semifinals, and the top-ranked player, Capriati, in the final. Serena's straight set win over Venus was her second career win over her sister.[citation needed]
Williams played three clay-court tournaments before the 2002 French Open. Her first tournament was at Charleston, where she was the third seed. Williams reached the quarterfinals before losing to Patty Schnyder. She reached her first clay-court final in May, at the Eurocard German Open losing to Justine Henin in a third set tiebreak. Williams went on to win her first clay court title at the Italian Open, defeating Capriati in the semifinals and Henin in the final.[74] This raised her ranking to a new high of No. 3. Williams was the third seed at the French Open at Roland Garros, where she claimed her first title there by defeating defending champion Capriati in the semifinals and sister Venus in the final to win her second Grand Slam tournament title (and her first in two-and-a-half years). As a result of raising the trophy at Court Philippe Chatrier, Williams rose to a career high of No. 2, second only to Venus.[citation needed]
At the 2002 Wimbledon Championships, Williams won tennis' oldest championship for the first time in her life, defeating Venus to win a Grand Slam singles title without dropping a set for the first time in her career. This victory earned Williams the world No. 1 ranking for the first time, dethroning her sister and becoming only the third African American woman to hold that ranking.[1] The Williams sisters also won the doubles title at the tournament, the fifth Grand Slam doubles title for the pair. Williams played just one tournament between Wimbledon and the US Open, losing in the quarterfinals of the JPMorgan Chase Open in Los Angeles to American Chanda Rubin and ending a 21-match winning streak. The top-seeded player at the US Open, Williams reached the final where, for the third Grand Slam in a row, she defeated her sister to win the title, the second US Open crown of her career. Williams won two consecutive singles titles in the fall, defeating Kim Clijsters to win the Toyota Princess Cup in Tokyo, and Anastasia Myskina to win the Sparkassen Cup in Leipzig, Germany. She reached the final at the year-end Home Depot Championships at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where she lost to fifth-seeded Clijsters in straight sets, ending an 18-match winning streak.[citation needed]
Williams finished 2002 with a 56–5 W/L record, eight singles titles, and the No. 1 ranking. She was the first African-American to end a year with that ranking since Althea Gibson in 1958[citation needed] and was the first woman to win three Grand Slam tournament titles in one year since Hingis in 1997.[1] Her three consecutive Grand Slam titles to close 2002 also made Williams only the third player in tennis history to win the "Surface Slam",[75] three Slam titles on three surfaces in the same calendar year, after Navratilova (1984) and Graf (1993, 1995, 1996).[citation needed]
At the 2003 Australian Open, Williams reached the tournament's semifinals for the first time, where she recovered from 5–1 down in the third set and saved two match points before defeating Clijsters. In the final, Serena faced Venus for the fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament final, defeating her older sister to become the sixth woman in the Open Era to complete a career Grand Slam, alongside Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Steffi Graf. She also became the fifth woman to hold all Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously, joining Maureen Connolly Brinker, Court, Graf, and Navratilova. This feat was dubbed the "Serena Slam" by the press.[76][77] The Williams sisters won their sixth Grand Slam doubles title together at this event.[78]
During the spring of 2003, Williams captured the singles titles at the Open Gaz de France and the Sony Ericsson Open. Williams's winning streak came to an end when she lost the final of the Family Circle Cup to Henin, her first loss of the year after 21 wins. She also lost to Mauresmo in the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. Despite these losses, Williams was the top seed at the French Open, where she lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Henin, marking Williams's first loss in a Grand Slam tournament since 2001. The match was controversial, as Williams questioned Henin's sportsmanship, and spectators applauded Williams's errors.[79] Williams rebounded from the French Open loss a couple weeks later at the 2003 Wimbledon Championships, defeating Henin in the semifinals and Venus in the final. This was Williams's second consecutive Wimbledon title and her sixth Grand Slam singles title overall. Wimbledon was Williams's last tournament of 2003; she pulled out of three events in the US and then underwent surgery on the quadriceps tendon in her knee in early August. Williams was initially expected to be out for six to eight weeks.[80]
2004–2007: Injuries and the comeback
Williams holds the most Grand Slam titles in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles combined among active players. Her 39 Grand Slam titles put her joint-third on the all-time list and second in the Open Era: 23 in singles, 14 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent female player to have held all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15) and the third player to achieve this twice, after Rod Laver and Graf. She is also the most recent player to have won a Grand Slam title on each surface (hard, clay and grass) in one calendar year (2015). She is also, together with her older sister Venus, the most recent player to have held all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).
Williams has won a record of 13 Grand Slam singles titles on hard court. Williams holds the Open Era record for most titles won at the Australian Open (7) and shares the Open Era record for most titles won at the US Open with Chris Evert (6). She also holds the record for the most women's singles matches won at majors with 349 matches.
Williams has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, all with her sister Venus, and the pair are unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals.[4] As a team, she and Venus have the third most women's doubles Grand Slam titles, behind the 18 titles of Natasha Zvereva (14 with Gigi Fernández) and the record 20 titles won by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver. Williams is also a five-time winner of the WTA Tour Championships in the singles division.[5] She has also 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.[6] The arrival of the Williams sisters has been credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women's professional tennis tour.[7][8][9][10] She is ranked at No. 9 in the world by the WTA as of January 13, 2020.[11]
Earning almost $29 million in prize money and endorsements, Williams was the highest paid female athlete in 2016.[12] She repeated this feat in 2017 when she was the only woman on Forbes' list of the 100 highest paid athletes with $27 million in prize money and endorsements. She has won the 'Laureus Sportswoman of the Year' award four times (2003, 2010, 2016, 2018), and in December 2015, she was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine.[13] In 2019, she was ranked 63rd in Forbes' World's Highest-Paid Athletes list
Early life
Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, to Oracene Price and Richard Williams, and is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, and full older sister Venus.[1] She also has at least seven paternal half-siblings.[15][16] When the children were young, the family moved to Compton, California, where Williams started playing tennis at the age of four.[17][18] Her father home schooled Serena and her sister, Venus.[19][20] While he and subsequently her mother have been the official coaches, other mentors who helped her learn the game included Richard Williams, a Compton man who shared her father's name and would go on to found The Venus and Serena Williams Tennis/Tutorial Academy.[21]
Williams sisters at a Pam Shriver event in Baltimore, 1993
When Williams was nine, she and her family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach, Florida,[17] so that she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci; Macci began to provide additional coaching. Macci did not always agree with Williams's father, but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls".[22] Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, since he wanted them to go slowly and to focus on school work. Experiences of racism also drove this experience, as Richard Williams had heard white parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments.[23] At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked number one among under-10 players in Florida.[24] In 1995, when Williams was in the ninth grade, her father 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."[24]
Playing style
Williams is primarily a baseline player, and her game is built around taking immediate control of rallies with her powerful and consistent serve,[25] return of serve, and forceful groundstrokes from both her forehand and backhand swings. Williams's forehand is considered to be among the most powerful shots in the women's game,[26] as is her double-handed backhand. Williams strikes her backhand groundstroke using an open stance, and uses the same open stance for her forehand. Williams's aggressive play, a "high risk" style, is balanced in part by her serve, which most say is the greatest in women's tennis history.[27][28][29] She consistently projects great pace and placement with her serves; in the 2013 Australian Open, she had a peak serve speed of 128.6 mph (207.0 km/h) which is the third fastest all-time among female players (only Venus's 129 mph[30] and Sabine Lisicki's 131 mph[31] recorded speeds are faster). What makes her serve even more deadly is her ball placement and her ability to consistently place powerful shots with great accuracy.[32] At the 2012 Championships at Wimbledon, she hit a women's tournament record of 102 aces, which was more than any of the men hit during the two weeks, a rarity given that aces are more common in the men's game.[33] Williams also possesses a very solid and powerful overhead. Although many think of Williams as only an offensive player,[who?] she also plays a strong defensive game.[34][35][36] She has stated that her favorite surface is clay because it gives her extra time to set up her shots.[37]
Williams is known for producing exceptional comebacks, particularly on the Grand Slam level. She has won three Grand Slam singles titles after saving match points (the 2003 Australian Open semifinal versus Kim Clijsters, the 2005 Australian Open semifinal versus Maria Sharapova, and the 2009 Wimbledon semifinal versus Elena Dementieva), a feat achieved more often than any other player in history.[38] She also came back from a 3–5 deficit in the third set against Kim Clijsters in the 1999 US Open en route to her first Grand Slam singles title.[39] In the 2012 US Open final against Victoria Azarenka, she was down 3–5 in the third set and found herself two points away from losing the match. Williams then proceeded to win the next 4 games and defeated Azarenka.[40] In the semifinals of the 2015 French Open, Williams was ill and barely able to walk during changeovers, yet beat her opponent, Timea Bacsinszky, 6–0 in the third set.[41] Another improbable win occurred in the third round of the 2015 Wimbledon Championships, when she recovered from two breaks of service in the third set to defeat Great Britain's number-one female player, Heather Watson.[42] Williams has bounced back from a set down to win in 37 Grand Slam matches.[43]
In recent years,[when?] Williams has shown an ability to serve aces at critical moments. One of these instances was the 2013 French Open final, were in the last game of the match, she fired three aces, including one which clocked at 123 mph (198 km/h) on match point.[44][45] She repeated the feat similarly against Angelique Kerber in the finals of the 2016 Wimbledon Championships[citation needed] to tie the Open Era record for Grand Slam singles titles.[citation needed] Williams fired three un-returnable serves in her final service game[citation needed] before winning the match and the title with a casual forehand volley on the next point.[citation needed]
Professional career
1995–1998: Professional debut
Williams's parents wanted their daughter to wait until she was 16 to participate in professional tournaments.[46] In 1995 just after turning 14, Williams planned to make her professional debut as a wild-card entry in the Bank of the West Classic in Oakland, California, but was denied by the WTA due to age-eligibility restrictions of the organization.[47] She subsequently filed an antitrust lawsuit against the women's tour, but withdrew it at the behest of her parents.[47] Her first professional event was in October 1995 at the Bell Challenge in Quebec,[46][48] where she used a wild-card entry to circumvent age-eligibility rules.[46] She lost in the first round of qualifying to then 18-year-old American Annie Miller, winning just two games.[49]
Williams did not play a tournament in 1996.[citation needed] The following year, she lost in the qualifying rounds of three tournaments,[citation needed] before winning her first main-draw match in November at the Ameritech Cup Chicago.[50] Ranked No. 304, she upset No. 7 Mary Pierce, and No. 4 Monica Seles,[51][52] recording her first career wins over top 10 players and becoming the lowest-ranked player in the Open Era to defeat two top-10 opponents in one tournament.[1] She ultimately lost in the semifinals to No. 5 Lindsay Davenport.[53] She finished 1997 ranked No. 99.[54]
Williams began 1998 at the Medibank International Sydney.[55] As a qualifier ranked No. 96,[56] she defeated No. 3 Davenport in the quarterfinals,[56] before losing to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in the semifinals.[57] Williams made her debut in the main draw of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open,[58] where she defeated sixth-seeded Irina Spîrlea in the first round,[59] before losing to her sister, Venus, in the second round in the first professional match for the sisters.[59][55] Williams reached six other quarterfinals during the year, but lost all of them,[60] including her first match against No. 1-ranked Martina Hingis at the Lipton International Players Championships in Key Biscayne,[61] and her second match against Venus at the Italian Open in Rome.[60] She failed to reach the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam tournament the remainder of the year,[citation needed] losing in the fourth round of the French Open to Arantxa Sánchez Vicario,[62] and the third round of the US Open to Spîrlea.[63] She withdrew from Wimbledon two games into a match with Virginia Ruano Pascual, after straining her calf muscle during the first set.[64] She did win the mixed doubles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open with Max Mirnyi, completing the Williams family's sweep of the 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slam tournaments. Williams won her first professional title in doubles in Oklahoma City with Venus, becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA title.[1] Serena and her sister won two more doubles titles together during the year. Williams finished the year ranked No. 20 in singles.[citation needed]
Battle of the sexes: Karsten Braasch vs. the Williams sisters
Main article: Battle of the Sexes (tennis)
A 16-year-old Serena competed in a tennis "Battle of the Sexes", along with her sister Venus Williams, against Karsten Braasch at the 1998 Australian Open.[65] At the time Braasch was 203rd in the ATP rankings. The Williams sisters had claimed they could beat any man outside the top 200, and accepted his challenge. Braasch beat both Williams sisters, playing a single set against each. The score vs Serena was 6–1 and vs Venus 6–2.[66] Braasch said afterward, "500 and above, no chance." The sisters later tweaked the number to beating men outside the top 350.[67]
1999–2001: Becoming a top-10 player
Williams lost in the third round of the 1999 Australian Open to Sandrine Testud. A month later, Williams won her first professional singles title when she defeated Amélie Mauresmo in the final of the Open Gaz de France in Paris. With Venus also winning the IGA Superthrift Classic in Memphis, Tennessee that day, the pair became the first sisters to win professional tournaments in the same week.[68] In March of that year, at the Evert Cup in California, Williams won her first Tier I title, defeating Steffi Graf in the final. Soon afterward at the Miami Masters, Williams had her 16-match winning streak ended by her sister in the first all-sister singles final in WTA history,[55] and she then made her top-10 debut, at No. 9. She then lost in the quarterfinals of the Italian Open[69] and the German Open,[70] and the third round of the French Open,[71] where she and Venus won the women's doubles title.[55] Williams then missed Wimbledon because of injury. When she returned to the tour, Williams won a Fed Cup singles match and then won the JPMorgan Chase Open in Los Angeles, beating Julie Halard-Decugis in the final. She then defeated in succession Grand Slam champions Kim Clijsters, Conchita Martínez, Monica Seles, and defending champion Lindsay Davenport to reach the US Open final, where she defeated No. 1, Hingis, to become the second African-American woman, after Althea Gibson in 1958, to win a Grand Slam singles tournament.[1] The Williams sisters also won the doubles title at this tournament. To complete her 1999 season, Williams won a doubles match in the Fed Cup final against Russia. Williams ended the year ranked No. 4 in just her second full year on the main tour.[citation needed]
Williams started 2000 by losing in the fourth round of the Australian Open to Elena Likhovtseva. She failed to defend her titles in Paris and Indian Wells, although she did win the Faber Grand Prix in Germany. Soon afterwards, Williams missed the French Open because of injury. She returned from injury at the Wimbledon Championships, where she lost to Venus in the semifinals, but the pair won the doubles title at the event. Williams successfully defended her title in Los Angeles, defeating Davenport in the final. She reached the final of the Du Maurier Open where an injury forced her to retire from her match with Hingis. Her defense of the US Open title ended when she lost in the quarterfinals to Davenport. Williams teamed with Venus to win the gold medal in doubles at the Sydney Olympics that September. She ended the year winning the Toyota Princess Cup in Japan and she finished the year ranked No. 6.[citation needed]
Williams began 2001 losing to Martina Hingis in the quarterfinals of the Medibank International in Sydney and the Australian Open in Melbourne. Williams and her sister won the doubles title at the latter tournament, becoming only the fifth doubles team in history to win all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles during their career, completing a "Career Grand Slam". Her next event was the Pacific Life Open in California, where she defeated Kim Clijsters in the final. The final was marred by the behavior of the crowd toward Williams and her family. Crowd members were incensed at the perceived match-fixing of games involving the family after Venus withdrew before their semifinal. Neither Williams nor her sister entered the tournament for fourteen years until Williams entered in 2015 as a wildcard (and the top seed).[72] The following week at the Ericsson Open in Miami, Williams lost to Jennifer Capriati in the quarterfinals. She then lost in the quarterfinals to Capriati at both the French Open and Wimbledon Championships. That was the fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament at which Williams had exited in the quarterfinals. During the North American hard-court season, she lost in the quarterfinals of Los Angeles against Monica Seles, then captured her second title of the year at the Rogers Cup, defeating Capriati in the final. Williams reached the final of the 2001 US Open, losing to sister Venus. That was the first Grand Slam tournament final contested by two sisters during the Open Era. At the 2001 season-ending Tour Championships, Williams won the championship by walkover when Davenport withdrew before the start of the final due to a knee injury. Williams finished 2001 at No. 6 for the second straight year.
2002–2003: "Serena Slam"
Early 2002, injury saw Williams retire from the semifinal at the Medibank International Sydney and later withdraw from the Australian Open
Returning from injury, Williams won her first title of the year in Scottsdale, Arizona, defeating No. 2 Jennifer Capriati, in the final. She then won the Miami Masters for the first time, becoming one of three players in the Open Era to defeat the world's top 3 ranked players at one tournament,[1] after beating No. 3, Martina Hingis, in the quarterfinals, No. 2 Venus in the semifinals, and the top-ranked player, Capriati, in the final. Serena's straight set win over Venus was her second career win over her sister.[citation needed]
Williams played three clay-court tournaments before the 2002 French Open. Her first tournament was at Charleston, where she was the third seed. Williams reached the quarterfinals before losing to Patty Schnyder. She reached her first clay-court final in May, at the Eurocard German Open losing to Justine Henin in a third set tiebreak. Williams went on to win her first clay court title at the Italian Open, defeating Capriati in the semifinals and Henin in the final.[74] This raised her ranking to a new high of No. 3. Williams was the third seed at the French Open at Roland Garros, where she claimed her first title there by defeating defending champion Capriati in the semifinals and sister Venus in the final to win her second Grand Slam tournament title (and her first in two-and-a-half years). As a result of raising the trophy at Court Philippe Chatrier, Williams rose to a career high of No. 2, second only to Venus.[citation needed]
At the 2002 Wimbledon Championships, Williams won tennis' oldest championship for the first time in her life, defeating Venus to win a Grand Slam singles title without dropping a set for the first time in her career. This victory earned Williams the world No. 1 ranking for the first time, dethroning her sister and becoming only the third African American woman to hold that ranking.[1] The Williams sisters also won the doubles title at the tournament, the fifth Grand Slam doubles title for the pair. Williams played just one tournament between Wimbledon and the US Open, losing in the quarterfinals of the JPMorgan Chase Open in Los Angeles to American Chanda Rubin and ending a 21-match winning streak. The top-seeded player at the US Open, Williams reached the final where, for the third Grand Slam in a row, she defeated her sister to win the title, the second US Open crown of her career. Williams won two consecutive singles titles in the fall, defeating Kim Clijsters to win the Toyota Princess Cup in Tokyo, and Anastasia Myskina to win the Sparkassen Cup in Leipzig, Germany. She reached the final at the year-end Home Depot Championships at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where she lost to fifth-seeded Clijsters in straight sets, ending an 18-match winning streak.[citation needed]
Williams finished 2002 with a 56–5 W/L record, eight singles titles, and the No. 1 ranking. She was the first African-American to end a year with that ranking since Althea Gibson in 1958[citation needed] and was the first woman to win three Grand Slam tournament titles in one year since Hingis in 1997.[1] Her three consecutive Grand Slam titles to close 2002 also made Williams only the third player in tennis history to win the "Surface Slam",[75] three Slam titles on three surfaces in the same calendar year, after Navratilova (1984) and Graf (1993, 1995, 1996).[citation needed]
At the 2003 Australian Open, Williams reached the tournament's semifinals for the first time, where she recovered from 5–1 down in the third set and saved two match points before defeating Clijsters. In the final, Serena faced Venus for the fourth consecutive Grand Slam tournament final, defeating her older sister to become the sixth woman in the Open Era to complete a career Grand Slam, alongside Margaret Court, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, and Steffi Graf. She also became the fifth woman to hold all Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously, joining Maureen Connolly Brinker, Court, Graf, and Navratilova. This feat was dubbed the "Serena Slam" by the press.[76][77] The Williams sisters won their sixth Grand Slam doubles title together at this event.[78]
During the spring of 2003, Williams captured the singles titles at the Open Gaz de France and the Sony Ericsson Open. Williams's winning streak came to an end when she lost the final of the Family Circle Cup to Henin, her first loss of the year after 21 wins. She also lost to Mauresmo in the semifinals of the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome. Despite these losses, Williams was the top seed at the French Open, where she lost in the semifinals to eventual champion Henin, marking Williams's first loss in a Grand Slam tournament since 2001. The match was controversial, as Williams questioned Henin's sportsmanship, and spectators applauded Williams's errors.[79] Williams rebounded from the French Open loss a couple weeks later at the 2003 Wimbledon Championships, defeating Henin in the semifinals and Venus in the final. This was Williams's second consecutive Wimbledon title and her sixth Grand Slam singles title overall. Wimbledon was Williams's last tournament of 2003; she pulled out of three events in the US and then underwent surgery on the quadriceps tendon in her knee in early August. Williams was initially expected to be out for six to eight weeks.[80]
2004–2007: Injuries and the comeback
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