Serena Williams really needs no introduction. At present, she is the number one ranked female player in the world of professional tennis. At only 27, she has won a total of 20 Grand Slam titles (8 women’s doubles, 2 mixed doubles and 10 singles), has held all four Grand Slam titles at once and is the current champion in the Australian Open and the US Open. Williams is nothing less than a living legend in tennis and was named Tennis magazine’s 17th best athlete of all time in 2005. She is sure to achieve much more yet as an athlete and enjoys incredibly popularity with fans.
Serena Williams was born in September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan by parents Richard and Oracene Price Williams. She is the youngest of the five siblings; Lyndrea, Isha, Yetunde and Venus. When the family moved to Los Angeles, Richard has dreamed of making one of his daughters a tennis superstar. Serena, along with her other siblings, was personally coached by parents and began playing tennis at young age and trained at the public courts in Compton, California. She participated in numerous clinics, particularly those that are targeted for at-risk youth. At the age of four and a half, Serena already won her first tournament. By the age of 10, she already participated in 49 tournaments and has won 46 of them.
Serena and her siblings were all home schooled. Serena’s father, hoping to avoid his daughters having to face racism, stopped sending them to national junior tennis tournaments. Serena then attended a tennis school run by professional player Rick Macci in Haines City Florida. During those times, she sometimes trained with Andy Roddick, who Serena actually beat one time in a practice match.
All these years of training built Serena into an incredible player. While she is best known as a baseline player, her technique consists of taking control of the rallies and Williams is considered to be one of the more aggressive players in the sport. Her serve, return and ground strokes whether fore or backhand are known for their power. Her serves are known as among the best in tennis, winning admiration from players, sportscasters and fans at every match. She serves at a high speed, regularly meeting and even exceeding 120 mph (she broke a record with her serves of 127 and 129 mph at Charleston in 2008). Her return serve can overpower opponents; and she hits both topspin and flat serves on either corner of the service box.
Besides her unsurpassable technique and skill on the court, she is well known for her personal style. It must run in the family, because the Williams family has founded a clothing line called Aneres. Williams has made many movie and television appearances, as well as having posed for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in 2003. She has a number of lucrative endorsement contracts for various products and has formed a partnership with Nike to create custom sportswear. Outside of tennis and fashion, Williams actively participates in charity work, having funded the construction of a Kenyan secondary school and has won the Avon Foundation’s Celebrity Role Model Award for her help in raising money for breast cancer research.
