Serena Williams

• 1. Introduction

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  Serena Williams stood at No.304 in the world rankings in November 1997 when she upset No.7 Mary Pierce and No.4 Monica Seles in the same tournament, a feat no lower-ranked player in the Open Era had managed. Within two decades she would hold the world No.1 ranking for 319 weeks, the third most of any woman in history, and finish as year end No.1 five times. She won 73 WTA Tour level singles titles, including 23 major singles titles, the most of the Open Era and the second most all time. She is the only player, man or woman, to complete three career Golden Slams, one in singles and two in doubles, all alongside her sister Venus. How did two sisters coached by their own parents, raised first in Compton and then in West Palm Beach, rewrite the record books of women's tennis. What cost did that dominance carry in injuries, controversy and grief. And what happened when the player who reshaped the sport had to walk away from it.

• 2. A Father's Blueprint

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  Richard Williams moved his family to Compton, California, over his wife Oracene Price's objections, believing the rough environment would toughen up his daughters for tennis careers he had planned before they were born. Serena, born on the 26th of September 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, was the youngest of Price's five daughters and started playing tennis at age four. Richard home schooled both girls himself. When Serena was nine the family moved again, this time to West Palm Beach, Florida, so she and Venus could train at Rick Macci's academy, where Macci later said Richard "treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls" even when he disagreed with his methods. By 1991 Williams held a 46-3 junior record and was ranked No.1 among under-10 players in Florida, yet at age 10 Richard pulled his daughters from national junior tournaments entirely, wanting them to "go slowly." Experiences of racism factored into that choice, since he had heard white parents disparage his daughters at tournaments. In 1995, midway through Serena's ninth grade year, Richard withdrew both girls from Macci's academy and took over all coaching himself, a decision that would shape how the sisters entered the professional game just months later.

• 3. Breaking Through

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  Williams' parents wanted her to wait until 16 to turn professional, but at just past 14 she tried to enter the Bank of the West Classic as a wild card and was denied on age eligibility grounds, prompting her to file and then withdraw an antitrust lawsuit against the WTA at her parents' request. Her actual professional debut came in October 1995 at the Bell Challenge in Quebec, where she lost in the first qualifying round to 18-year-old Annie Miller. After sitting out 1996 entirely, she won her first main draw match at the Ameritech Cup in November 1997, the run that carried her past Pierce and Seles and into the world's Top 100 for the first time. She finished 1997 ranked No.99. The following February she won her first professional singles title over Amélie Mauresmo in Paris, and in September 1999 she beat top ranked Martina Hingis in the US Open final to become only the second African American woman to win a Grand Slam singles title, after Althea Gibson. She closed that season at a career high world No.4, a ranking milestone reached faster than any woman before her.

• 4. The Serena Slam

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  At the 2001 Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Richard Williams said spectators had directed racist comments at him, and both sisters pledged to boycott the tournament; Serena's boycott lasted until 2015. The following year she strung together four consecutive major singles titles, from the 2002 French Open through the 2003 Australian Open, beating Venus in the final each time, a run the press dubbed the "Serena Slam." The 2002 US Open final was her third straight Grand Slam final against her sister, and that year she finished with a 56-5 record, eight singles titles, and the No.1 ranking, joining Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf as only the third player to complete a Surface Slam. At the 2003 Australian Open she beat Venus again to become the sixth woman in the Open Era to complete a career Grand Slam. That Wimbledon, her last event of the season, she beat Venus once more before undergoing knee surgery. The 2003 French Open semifinal loss to Justine Henin was contentious, with Williams questioning Henin's sportsmanship as spectators applauded her errors, a rivalry that would eventually see Williams lead their 14 meetings 8-6.

• 5. Setbacks and Depression

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  Umpire Mariana Alves made an incorrect call against Williams during her 2004 US Open quarterfinal loss to Jennifer Capriati, a controversy Williams called "cheated" and one that helped drive tennis toward adopting Hawk-Eye video review. Williams acknowledged the loss owed largely to her own 57 unforced errors. She did not win a Grand Slam singles title that season for the first time since 2001. In her biography she later revealed she suffered from depression during 2006, staying off tour for six months and seeing a therapist daily; her ranking slipped to No.139, her lowest since 1997, and she finished the year at No.95. Before the 2007 Australian Open a Nike representative warned her sponsorship could be canceled if she underperformed, and commentator Pat Cash called her stated goal of returning to the top "deluded." Unseeded at No.81, Williams reached the final and beat Maria Sharapova while losing just three games, becoming the first unseeded Australian Open champion since Chris O'Neil and dedicating the win to her late half-sister Yetunde. In September 2009, she was penalized a point for unsportsmanlike conduct after threatening a lineswoman during her US Open semifinal against Kim Clijsters, drawing a $10,500 fine followed by a $175,000 fine and two years' probation from the Grand Slam Committee. She later apologized, saying she was humbled by the experience. That same year she earned $6,545,586 in prize money, breaking Justine Henin's single season record. On the 7th of July 2010, Williams stepped on broken glass in a Munich restaurant, an injury that sidelined her for the rest of the year; the following March she confirmed she had suffered a hematoma and a pulmonary embolism. She returned to competition in 2011 but slipped to No.169 after a round of 16 exit at Wimbledon. At that year's US Open final she called umpire Eve Asderaki "a hater" and refused the customary handshake after her loss to Samantha Stosur, drawing a $2,000 fine.

• 6. A Second Dominant Run

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  At Wimbledon in 2012, Williams became the first woman to serve 24 aces in a single match and set a tournament record of 102 aces overall, capturing her fifth Wimbledon title. She then won Olympic gold in London, completing her career Golden Slam in singles, and paired with Venus for a second consecutive Olympic doubles title. In 2013 she became the oldest woman in the Open Era to hold the world No.1 ranking, and her 2013 season earnings of $12.4 million made her the first woman to surpass $10 million in prize money in a single year. From the 2014 to 2015 seasons she won all four majors in a row for a second time, a feat later called her second Serena Slam, and in 2015 she also completed a Surface Slam by winning on hard, clay and grass courts in the same calendar year. Her bid for a calendar year Grand Slam ended at the 2015 US Open semifinals, where she lost to Roberta Vinci in an upset widely called one of the biggest in tennis history. At the 2017 Australian Open she won her 23rd major title, surpassing Steffi Graf's Open Era record, without yet knowing she was already several weeks pregnant.

• 7. Motherhood and the Umpire Chair

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  Williams revealed on the 19th of April 2017, that she was 20 weeks pregnant, meaning she had already been carrying her daughter when she won that year's Australian Open. She gave birth on the 1st of September 2017, then suffered a pulmonary embolism after delivery that left her bedridden for six weeks. During her comeback she reached four major finals without winning one. At the 2018 US Open final against Naomi Osaka, umpire Carlos Ramos issued Williams a code violation for receiving coaching signals from Patrick Mouratoglou, who later admitted in an interview that he had in fact been coaching. Two further violations, for racket abuse and verbal abuse, cost Williams a point and then a game, and she was fined $17,000 total. She said she was treated unfairly because she is a woman. A cartoon in the Melbourne Herald Sun depicting the incident was widely condemned as racist, including by her husband Alexis Ohanian and author J. K. Rowling.

• 8. The Final Match

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  In the September 2022 issue of Vogue, Williams announced she would "evolve away" from tennis after that year's US Open. She began her farewell tour by beating Nuria Párrizas Díaz in Toronto for her first singles win in 14 months. At the US Open itself, her first round win over Danka Kovinić was followed by a tribute video narrated by Oprah Winfrey and an on court interview by Gayle King, with Eric Adams, Bill Clinton, Mike Tyson and Tiger Woods among those watching. In the second round she upset world No.2 Anett Kontaveit, becoming the oldest woman in the Open Era to beat a top three ranked player, before losing to Ajla Tomljanović in what proved to be her final professional match. Across her career she and Venus went 19-12 in head to head singles matches while remaining undefeated in nine major doubles finals together, a joint record for four Olympic gold medals that no other pair in tennis has matched.