Serena Williams

Serena Williams (born September 26, 1981, Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.) is a retired American tennis player who revolutionized women’s tennis with her powerful style of play and who won more Grand Slam singles titles (23) than any other woman during the open era. Williams and her elder sister, Venus Williams, emerged in the mid-1990s and soon became dominant players on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour, both in singles and as doubles partners. In 1999 Serena Williams won her first major tournament, the U.S. Open, when she was just 17 years old. Over the following decades Williams surpassed her sister and fought off challenges from other contemporaries, including Justine Henin and Maria Sharapova, to become the undisputed best women’s player in the 21st century. Chasing history in her later career, Williams passed Steffi Graf’s record 22 Grand Slam singles wins with her last major victory, at the 2017 Australian Open, but injuries prevented her from breaking Margaret Court’s all-time record (24 major singles victories, achieved in 1973). Off the court, Williams became a prominent public figure through her forays into fashion, business, and philanthropy.

Childhood

Williams grew up in Compton, California. The family included her parents—Oracene Price, a nurse, and Richard Williams, who founded a security service—and Venus Williams, her elder sister. Price also had three daughters from a previous marriage. While both parents encouraged Serena and Venus Williams to play tennis, it was Richard Williams who largely taught them the sport, taking the two girls to the public courts in the area. He was known as a strict coach, and the sisters spent long hours practicing. In 1991 the family moved to Florida so that Serena and Venus Williams could attend a tennis academy.

First Grand Slam victories

Serena Williams turned professional in 1995, one year after her elder sister. Possessing powerful serves and ground strokes and superb athleticism, they soon attracted much attention. Many predicted that Venus would be the first Williams sister to win a Grand Slam singles title, but it was Serena who accomplished the feat, winning the 1999 U.S. Open. At that tournament the sisters won the doubles event, and, over the course of their careers, the two teamed up for 14 Grand Slam doubles titles.

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At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, Serena and Venus Williams won gold medals in the doubles event. After several years of inconsistent play, Serena Williams asserted herself in 2002 and won the French Open, Wimbledon, and the U.S. Open, defeating Venus Williams in the finals of each tournament. At the latter tournament, Serena Williams also garnered attention by wearing a catsuit. Long interested in fashion, Williams became noted for bold outfits that highlighted her muscular physique and challenged the sport’s traditional—and typically conservative—dress codes.

Reign as best women’s player

Displaying her trademark tenacity, Williams won the Australian Open in 2003 and thus completed a career Grand Slam by having won all four of the slam’s component tournaments. Later that year she was also victorious at Wimbledon; both of her Grand Slam wins in 2003 came after she had bested her sister in the finals. In 2005 Williams won the Australian Open again. Beset by injury the following year, she rebounded in 2007 to win her third Australian Open. Serena and Venus Williams won their second doubles tennis gold medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Later that year Serena Williams won the U.S. Open for a third time.

In 2009 she captured her 10th Grand Slam singles title by winning the Australian Open. Later that year she won her third Wimbledon singles title, once again defeating her sister. Williams defended her titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2010. She subsequently battled various health issues that kept her off the court for almost a year.

In 2012 Williams captured her fifth Wimbledon singles title. A month later at the London Olympic Games, she won a gold medal in the singles event, becoming the second woman (behind Steffi Graf) to win a career Golden Slam. She also teamed with her sister to win the doubles event. Later that year Williams claimed her 15th Grand Slam singles title with a victory at the U.S. Open. In 2013 she won her second French Open singles championship and fifth U.S. Open singles title. Williams successfully defended her U.S. Open championship in 2014, which gave her 18 career Grand Slam titles, tying her with Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova for the second highest women’s singles total of the open era.

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The following year she captured her sixth Australian Open. Williams then won the 2015 French Open—her 20th total Grand Slam singles championship. She continued her torrid streak at Wimbledon, winning a straight-set final to capture her sixth career Wimbledon singles title. Williams again won Wimbledon in 2016, giving her 22 career Grand Slam singles titles, which tied her with Graf for the most Slams in the open era for both women and men. Williams broke Graf’s record at the 2017 Australian Open, where she defeated her sister in the final. (In 2023 Novak Djokovic won his 24th major title, setting the record for men in the open era.)

Late career and retirement

In April 2017 Williams announced that she was pregnant (she had gotten engaged to Alexis Ohanian, cofounder of the website Reddit, in December 2016) and would miss the remainder of the 2017 season. In September she gave birth to a daughter, and two months later she married Ohanian. Williams returned to tennis in March 2018. She failed to win a tournament that year, though she reached the finals at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. The latter loss proved controversial as Williams was penalized a game after arguing with the chair umpire over a code violation. In 2019 she was again defeated in the finals at both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. At the 2020 ASB Classic in Auckland, New Zealand, Williams won her first singles event in some three years.

Williams reached the semifinals of the 2021 Australian Open but lost to Naomi Osaka. Later that year she was forced to withdraw from both Wimbledon and the U.S. Open because of injuries. After missing the first half of the 2022 season, Williams competed at Wimbledon but was defeated in the first round. She later was interviewed for Vogue magazine and revealed that she would be retiring after the upcoming U.S. Open. Williams stated that she was “evolving away from tennis, toward other things that are important to me.”

Other activities

Already well known for wearing innovative and boundary-pushing outfits on the tennis court, Williams ventured further into the fashion world during her later career. In 2012 she became the first Black female athlete to be featured on the cover of Vogue magazine. In 2019 she was a host of the Met Gala, and the following year she founded a fashion line, S by Serena, which was discontinued four years later. In 2024 she established WYN Beauty, a makeup brand. Her business activities outside fashion include the venture capital firm Serena Ventures, established in 2014.

In 2011 Williams was appointed a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. In 2018 Serena and Venus Williams founded the Yetunde Price Resource Center, in Compton, to provide mental health support and other services to victims of violence and the local community; it was named in honor of their half sister, who was murdered in 2003. Serena Williams’s autobiography, On the Line (written with Daniel Paisner), was published in 2009.