Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is a professional women's tennis player who has won seven Grand Slam singles titles and is a former World No. 1. She is the younger sister of another female tennis player, Venus Williams. She currently resides in 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), lived in the poor and 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 her 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, Illinois, recording her first career wins over top 10 players. She finished 1997 at No. 99 in the world.

1998

1998 was the first year that Williams finished in the WTA top 20. She began the season in Sydney as a qualifier, ranked no. 96, and beat world no. 3 Lindsay Davenport in a quarterfinal. With her top 20 ranking, Williams was then expected to do well in her first Grand Slam tournament. However, she lost in the second round of the Australian Open to sister Venus. [1]

Williams reached six other quarterfinals during the season. She won 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 Slams. Williams 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 U.S. $2.6 million in prize money during the year.

1999

In 1999, Serena defeated Amélie Mauresmo in a final the same day that Venus won in Oklahoma City, marking the first time in professional tennis history that two sisters had won titles in the same week.

Ranked number 21, Williams defeated three top 10 players at the Indian Wells tournament: world no. 2 Lindsay Davenport in the second round, world no. 8 Mary Pierce in a quarterfinal, and world no. 7 Steffi Graf in the final.

Williams became the focus of many ad campaigns, including one with shoe and clothes maker PUMA, which signed her to a U.S. $12 million agreement.

On September 11, 1999, Williams won her first Grand Slam tournament when she became US Open champion, becoming the first African American woman to win a Grand Slam singles tournament since Althea Gibson in 1958. The next day, she and sister Venus won the doubles championship. She finished 1999 ranked no. 4 in just her third full season.

2000-2002

In 2000, Williams won the doubles gold medal at the Sydney Olympics with her 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 by defeating her sister Venus in the finals of all three. She finished the year with a 56-5 record and 8 titles. She stayed number one for a year and during that time, won three of her seven career Grand Slam singles titles. She also reached the final of the WTA tour championships for a second time before losing to Kim Clijsters. She also won the Wimbledon doubles title with her sister Venus for the second time. [2]

2003

Williams beat her sister Venus to win 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. This was only the sixth time that a woman had held all four of tennis' major championships within 12 months. This accomplishment was also remarkable in that Williams had to beat her sister each time. The Williams siblings are the only two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals.

For the first time since January 2002, a Grand Slam final did not read Williams-Williams. Venus lost to Vera Zvonareva in the fourth round of the French Open. Among boos and catcalls, Serena lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne in an acrimonious and controversial semifinal match. With Serena leading 4-2 (30-0), she hit her first serve into the net. Henin-Hardenne had raised her hand during Serena's service motion to indicate to hold the serve, but the chair umpire incorrectly ruled that Serena should be allowed only a second serve. The crowd then booed and hissed, continuing throughout Williams' service motion. Serena went on to lose the game and eventually the match. In her post-match interview, Serena expressed disappointment in Henin-Hardenne's behavior during the third set incident.

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.

2004-2005

Williams 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, Williams 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 three of the tournament's top 4 seeds (#2 Amélie Mauresmo, #4 Maria Sharapova, and #1 Lindsay Davenport) en route to the title. Like her Australian Open title in 2003, Williams saved match points against Maria Sharapova in the semifinals.

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). Williams broke down in tears in the subsequent press conference. She had come into the tournament with a stress fracture in her ankle (which forced her to place extra strain onto her right knee) and a severe lack of conditioning. She also had not played a competitive match for six weeks, missing the French Open.

At the 2005 U.S. Open, Williams made it through the first three rounds, but was defeated by her sister Venus in the 4th round, 7-6, 6-2. This was the earliest that the two sisters had met in a Grand Slam tournamentsince the 1999 Australian Open.

Williams then was forced to take a break for the rest of 2005 because of ankle and knee injuries.

In 2005, TENNIS Magazine put her in 17th place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.

2006

Williams went into the Australian Open with no warm-up tournaments or exhibitions due to injury, except for a 6-3, 6-1 loss to Elena Dementieva at the Watsons Water Challenge in Hong Kong. Williams was the defending champion at the Australian Open but fell to Daniela Hantuchova 6-1, 7-6(7-5) in the third round. In earlier rounds, Williams defeated Na Li of China (6-3, 6-7, 6-2) and Camille Pin of France (6-3, 6-1). Her early exit provoked media reports that Williams had lost her enthusiasm for the sport, which she denied. She then fell out of the top 50 for the first time in many years. She then pulled out of the Proximus Diamond Games in Antwerp, the Dubai Duty Free Women's Open, and the Nasdaq 100 Open.

After withdrawing from the Charleston, South Carolina Family Circle Cup, Williams fell out of the top-100 players in the world for the first time in almost a decade. Shortly after, on May 3, she announced that she would miss both the French Open and Wimbledon as a result of her nagging chronic knee injury. She revealed that she would not be able to compete before "the end of the summer," on doctors' orders.

Williams, however, made a return to the game earlier than expected, accepting wildcards into events in Cincinnati and Los Angeles. She admitted that her six-month break from competitive tennis was as much for a "mental break" as for urgent rehabilitation for her knee injury.

Ranked No. 139 due to her inactivity, Williams made a successful comeback by defeating the Cincinnati tournament's No. 2 seed and No. 11-ranked Anastasia Myskina 6-2, 6-2, in the first round. She then defeated Bethanie Mattek 6-3, 6-1 and Amy Frazier 6-2, 6-2 before losing to a resurgent and the eventual champion Vera Zvonareva 6-2, 6-3 in a semifinal. Williams ranking rose to No. 108 as a result of this tournament.

In Los Angeles, Williams defeated world No. 21 Maria Kirilenko 6-2, 6-1 in the first round. In the second round, Williams defeated fellow American Ashley Harkleroad 6-3, 6-2. Williams then faced Daniela Hantuchova, the woman responsible for her early Australian Open exit. Williams had this to say about the rematch, "I'm a much better player than I was in Australia," and "I'm much more fit; I'm much more ready. I'm in a better place. It's a whole different ball game." She beat Hantuchova 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 and then beat Meghann Shaughnessy 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-3 to set up a semifinal match against Jelena Jankovic. Williams lost the match 6-4, 6-3.

Williams was granted a wildcard into the US Open, as her ranking prevented her from gaining direct entry into the tournament. She was ranked 79th in the main draw and was unseeded in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time since 1998. Williams lost to Amelie Mauresmo in the fourth round 6-4, 0-6, 6-2.

At the end of 2006, she was ranked 95th.

Fashion

Williams is known for her unusual and colorful outfits on court. In 2002, Williams created an on-court stir when she wore a leather-looking catsuit at the US Open. Again at the US Open, in 2004, Williams wore denim skirts and boots. Willaims had a special line at Puma and has a current one at Nike. http://www.tomjamison.co.uk/photography/pnov/images/Serena-Williams_jpg.jpg http://www.gibbsmagazine.com/serena.jpg http://sportsmed.starwave.com/media/pg2/2002/0710/photo/swilliams_i.jpg http://www.tribuneindia.com/2003/20031105/s5.jpg

Outside the tennis courts, Williams was also the center of attention when on November 2004, she reached a new level of exposure at the London premiere of Pierce Brosnan's new film, After the Sunset. In an outfit that had a near-topless effect, Williams wore a red gown with strips of sheer fabric that revealed more than just cleavage.

Williams has her own line of designer clothing called Aneres — her first name spelled backward — that she plans to sell in boutiques in Miami and Los Angeles. Venus also appeared as one of her models, showing her latest designs. [3]

Entertainment

In 2001, Serena along with her sister, Venus appeared on The Simpsons tennis themed episode after Bart and Lisa boycott to play against each other in the family. She has also posed for a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and has had a lucrative career in advertisements. http://www.darrenwestlund.com/PeoplePage1/SerenaM.jpghttp://www.africanamericans.com/images2/SerenaWilliams.jpghttp://www.milknewsroom.com/images/ad_serena.jpg

In April 2005, MTV announced plans to broadcast a reality show around the lives of Serena and Venus Williams, but ABCFamily aired the show.

Williams was the fifth victim and the ninth star ever to be on Punk'd more than twice. Her first appearance was when Williams had to save a Punk'd problem kid played by Rob Pinkston until Kutcher exposed the set-up. Her second is when Serena passed the prank on her sister Venus after both Serena and Venus were fighting with a fraud during a photoshoot with some handicapped people. She is also a supporter of literacy. http://www.ala.org/Images/Graphics/Serena.gif

In 2002, Williams played Miss Wiggins in the season 3 episode "Crouching Mother, Hidden Father" of My Wife and Kids. In 2005, Serena guest starred in an episode of ER, season 13.

Welsh indie band, Super Furry Animals, sang a track on their 2003 album Phantom Power called "Venus and Serena" - dedicated to the sisters.

Grand Slam singles finals

Wins (7)

Runner-ups (2)

Titles (37)

Singles (26)

Singles performance timeline

To prevent confusion and double counting, information in this table is updated only once a tournament or the player's participation in the tournament has concluded. This table is current through the WTA Tour Championships, which ended on November 12, 2006.