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The following biography
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Serena Jameka Williams
(born September 26, 1981) is a professional women's tennis player, who
is a former World No. 1 of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). She is
the younger sister of another female tennis champion, Venus Williams.
She currently resides at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States.
* * * *
Early life
Serena Williams was born in
Saginaw, Michigan. When she and her four sisters were young, their
parents, Richard and Oracene (also called Brandy), took them to the poor
and sometimes violent Los Angeles suburb of Compton. Her father dreamed
of making at least one of his daughters a tennis superstar, hoping that
involvement in sports would give them a way out of that neighborhood.
When Serena was four and a
half, she won her first tournament, and she entered 49 tournaments
before the age of 10, winning 46 of them. At one point, she replaced
sister Venus as the number one ranked tennis player aged 12 or under in
California.
1991-1997
In 1991, Richard Williams,
saying that he hoped to prevent his daughters from facing racism,
stopped sending them to national junior tennis tournaments, and Serena
attended a tennis school run by professional player Rick Macci instead.
Macci had already helped the careers of Jennifer Capriati and Mary
Pierce, among others. Soon Richard, who had struck a deal on behalf of
his daughters with a major clothing company, was able to move the rest
of the Williams family to West Palm Beach, to be near Serena and Venus.
Serena became a
professional in September 1995 at the age of 14. Because of her age, she
had to participate in non-WTA events at first. Her first professional
event was the Bell Challenge in Quebec, and she was ousted in less than
an hour of play.
By 1997, ranked number 304
in the world, she upset both Monica Seles and Mary Pierce at the
Ameritech Open in Chicago, recording her first career wins over top 10
players. She finished 1997 in the top 100 at no. 99.
1998
1998 was the first year
when she finished in the WTA top 20. She began the season in Sydney as a
qualifier, ranked no. 96, and she beat world no. 3 Lindsay Davenport in
the quarterfinal. Serena, with her top 20 ranking, was then expected to
do well in her first Grand Slam tournament, but she lost in the second
round of the Australian Open to sister Venus.
Serena reached six other
quarterfinals during the season. She won the mixed doubles title at
Wimbledon and US Open with Max Mirnyi, completing the Williams family's
sweep of the 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slams. Sister Venus also won the
mixed doubles at the Australian and Roland Garros opens with Justin
Gimelstob. She won her first pro title in doubles at Oklahoma City with
sister Venus becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA tour
women's doubles title. She earned 2.6 million dollars in the season.
1999
In 1999, Serena was ranked
number 21, and she and sister Venus had become celebrities. She defeated
Amélie Mauresmo in a final the same day that Venus won in Oklahoma City,
marking first time in professional tennis history tht two sisters had
won titles in the same week.
Ranked number 21, she
defeated 3 top 10 players: world no. 2 Lindsay Davenport in the second
round, world no. 8 Mary Pierce in the quarterfinal, and world no. 7
Steffi Graf in the final at Indian Wells.
Serena has been the focus
of many ad campaigns, including one with shoe and clothes maker Puma,
which signed her to a $12 million agreement.
On September 11, 1999,
Serena won her first Grand Slam tournament when she became US Open
champion, becoming the first African American woman to win a Grand Slam
tournament since Althea Gibson in 1958. The next day, she and sister
Venus won the doubles championship at the same tournament. She finished
1999 ranked no. 4 in just her third full season.
2000-2002
In 2000, she won the
doubles gold medal at the Olympics with sister Venus. 2001 was the third
consecutive year in which she finished in the top 10 reaching her first
Grand Slam singles final in two years. In 2002, she won the French Open,
Wimbledon, and the US Open.
2003
She won the Australian Open
in 2003, her fourth straight Grand Slam singles title, becoming only the
ninth woman ever to win all four Grand Slam events.
For the first time since
January 2002, the Grand Slam final did not read Williams-Williams at the
French Open in June 2003. Venus lost to Vera Zvonareva in the fourth
round of the French Open. Among boos and catcalls, Serena lost to
Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium in a controversial match marred by
questionable sportsmanship on the part of Henin-Hardenne. Henin-Hardenne
backed away from her position, just as Serena was about to serve at a
critical point in the match. Serena missed the serve. After a futile
exchange with the umpire which turned the crowd against her, the lost
point stayed. Henin-Hardenne later said she would have told the umpire
the truth about obstructing the serve "if it was anyone but Serena."
Henin-Hardenne's coach, Carlos Rodriguez publicly voiced the same
sentiment. Henin-Hardenne commented: "Everybody's happy today, but the
Williams sisters." Henin-Hardenne was responsible for two of Serena's
three losses in 2003 (all on clay).
At Wimbledon in 2003,
Serena Williams became back-to-back champion, defeating Henin-Hardenne
in straight set in the semifinals and her sister Venus in the finals by
a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-2.
Serena beat her sister
Venus to win the Australian Open in 2003. This was only the sixth time a
woman has held all four of tennis' major championships within 12 months.
This accomplishment was also remarkable in that Serena had to beat her
sister each time. The Williams siblings are the first two women in Grand
Slam history to square off in five consecutive finals.
Williams' older sister,
Yetunde Price, was murdered on the morning of September 14, 2003, by
gunshots as she passed by in a car driven by a man in the Compton area.
Serena withdrew from
Australian Open 2004 to continue rehabilitating her left knee. She
reached the final of Wimbledon once again, but lost to the 17-year-old
Russian player Maria Sharapova. On July 30, Serena withdrew from her
quarterfinal match against Russia's Vera Zvonareva with a left knee
injury. On August 1, she announced her withdrawal from the Rogers Cup
due to the same injury. The injury also forced her to pull out of the
2004 Summer Olympics.
Controversy has arisen over
Williams's level of dedication to the sport. Some believe that she is
far too concerned with her fashion and acting careers and has not
focused enough recently on her tennis. Disappointing performances during
2004 have been cited as proof of this lack of focus. However, in 2005,
she won her seventh Grand Slam event, winning the Australian Open. She
defeated the top two seeds, Maria Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport, en
route to the title.
In April 2005, MTV
announced plans to broadcast a reality show around the lives of Serena
and Venus Williams. Williams was also on Punk'd when she was trying to
save a Punk'd problem kid played by Rob Pinkston until Ashton Kutcher
exposed the set-up.
Her participation in
Wimbledon 2005 ended in the third round when she was beaten by fellow
American Jill Craybas (ranked 85th in the world) 6-3, 7-6(4). Serena
broke down in tears in the subsequent press conference. She had come
into the tournament with an stress fracture in her ankle, a severe lack
of conditioning, and had not played a competitive match for six weeks,
missing the French Open.
As Serena slumped in the
tournament, Venus progressed, defeating top-seeded Lindsay Davenport in
the 2005 Wimbledon final. Venus admitted later that she emulated
Serena's never-say-die spirit, and this attitude led her Wimbledon
victory.
Titles (37)
Legend (Singles)
Grand Slam (7)
WTA Championships (1)
Tier I Event (7)
WTA Tour (11)
Singles (26)
Performance timeline
Tournament 2005 2004 2003
2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 Career
Australian Open W - W - SF
4r 3r 2r 2
French Open - QF SF W QF -
3r 4r 1
Wimbledon 3r F W W QF SF -
3r 2
US Open . QF - W F QF W 3r
2
WTA Tour Championships . F
- F W - - - 1
Doubles (11)
-
1998:
Oklahoma City
-
1998:
Zurich
-
1999:
Hannover
-
1999:
French Open
-
1999:
U.S. Open
-
2000:
Wimbledon
-
2000:
Summer Olympics-Sydney
-
2001:
Australian Open
-
2002:
Wimbledon
-
2002:
Leipzig (with Alexandra Stevenson)
-
2003:
Australian Open
-
All
titles except 2002 Leipzig won with Venus Williams as partner.
* * * *
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URL of Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serena_Williams
Date Article Copied:
July 11, 2005
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