25/10/2023, 15:08 Serena Williams -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

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Serena Williams
Serena Williams, (born September 26, 1981,
Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.), 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 or man during the
Serena Williams open era.

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 older sister. Price also had
three daughters from a previous marriage. While both
Serena Williams 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. Serena Williams
turned professional in 1995, one year after her older 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.

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,
Serena Williams and Venus defeating Venus Williams in the finals of each
Williams
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 strength and challenged

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traditional—and typically conservative—dress codes.

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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
Serena Williams 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
Serena Williams 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. 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 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
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25/10/2023, 15:08 Serena Williams -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia

remainder of the 2017 season. In September she gave

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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.
Serena Williams and her Open. The latter loss proved controversial as Williams
daughter, Alexis Olympia
was penalized a game after arguing with the chair
Ohanian, Jr.
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.”

Williams’s activities outside of tennis include ventures relating to fashion, beauty, and
accessories. Her autobiography, On the Line (written with Daniel Paisner), was published in
2009.
The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by J.E. Luebering.

Citation Information
Article Title: Serena Williams
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 18 October 2023
URL: https://www.britannica.comhttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Serena-Williams
Access Date: October 25, 2023

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