Serena Williams has done it all in tennis, but there’s so much more to come.
The 20-time grand slam champion was born in St. Louis and has been playing tennis since she was five. Her father, Mike, would take her on the court and teach her, so she’s never forgotten her father’s passion.
“My dad instilled a love for the sport and it never left me,” Williams said. “I remember going down to my sisters’ and thinking, ‘There’s not a lot of girls out there that want to play this game.’ … I remember my mom telling me, ‘You’re never going to be able to play this game.’ And then she would show me how to play and I tried my best. And then we moved to Florida, and I started doing all these different things to get more exposure.”
Serena Williams is a four-time US Open, all-time record-holder and two-time Olympic gold medalist. She won the biggest prize in sports after winning a record six majors and claiming 16 Grand Slam titles at the age of 23. Not bad for a girl from St. Louis.
“I remember her winning the French Open and then she came to us and she said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me, but I want to play the Open,’ and we started working out on the court, and she started out slowly, and then she just went into a whole new level and it was amazing,” Mike Williams said.
That talent won her a place on the 2002 USOpen team, where she became the youngest player on the team, and a place on the all-time women’s Grand Slam singles champions list. She went on to compete at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Williams’ second Grand Slam victory came at the 2008 U.S. Open, where she ended Monica Seles’ 20-year-old record for winning three consecutive U.S. Open singles titles. Williams also won the 2011 Bank of the West Classic, the 2013 Australian Open and the 2018 French Open.
While many of her wins have come at major championships, there were a series of losses to her near rival Serena Williams, whose game has made her the best in the women’s game. Williams was defeated for the first time at the U.S.
