Seven Wimbledon single titles and 22 grand slams partly qualify the Serena Williams phenomenon. The other part, and of matching interest, is the 34-year-old’s off-court activity. Serena regularly teases the sporting world with her colourful love life and keen fashion sense.
The youngest of the five daughters born to Richard Williams and Oracene Price in Saginaw, Michigan, Serena Jameka Williams began intensive tennis training at the age of three. She and older sister, Venus, were raised to overcome physical and psychological barriers in pursuit of personal and professional goals at the family’s tough Compton, California neighbourhood.
Both took sibling rivalry to competitive heights, but retained a healthy dose of mutual respect. The years of intense practice on courts riddled with potholes and missing nets based on knowledge gleaned from tennis books and videos by their father mattered in the end as they helped Serena, in particular, absorb the ire of critics.
The sisters remain close, lending each other moral support whenever one is knocked out of a tournament as Venus illustrated on the sidelines while her sister mastered Angelique Kerber 7-5, 6-3 in front of the Centre Court crowd on July 9, 2016. Hours after her singles win, the sisters corralled the doubles, their sixth Wimbledon win together and 22 majors overall.
The making of Serena
While she shed tears of defeat that revised the term, sibling rivalry, in the early days of the sisters’ on-court rivalry, Serena has since slanted their head-to-head record in her favour. The tide completely shifted in 2002 as Serena won the French Open, the U.S. Open and Wimbledon, defeating Venus in the finals of each tournament.
Whether the tears came from coming off worse in sibling rivalry or a desire to win it all, the Serena whirlwind ensued, sweeping all before the sexy, muscular, power-playing individual generally considered the greatest ever professional woman tennis player.
For the ambitious Amazon loom pastures new, however. After Steffi Graf’s mark of 22 Open-era Grand Slams comes Australian Margaret Court’s 24 majors straddling the old and new regimes. Serena’s impressive form and collection of Grand Slams (the four major professional tennis titles of French Open, Australian Open, US Open and Wimbledon) suggest that the feat is only a matter of time.
Still, title No. 22 took some time coming. A shock loss to Italy’s Roberta Vinci in the 2015 U.S. Open semi-finals, which frustrated a calendar Grand Slam (the big four in one year), only prolonged the suspense up to the 2016 Wimbledon. Until Venus lost in the semi-final of the All-England Club championship, the siblings seemed poised to reenact their oft-repeated final match-up at the home of tennis’ Holy Grail.
By her latest feat, Serena became the highest-earning female tennis player, with $81m in prize money, a figure that she has supplemented with endorsements and earnings from designing and vending her own collections.
The rise
Serena’s path to the pinnacle of women’s tennis was anything but simple. A radical side initially highlighted by skimpy tennis outfits seemed to have culminated in ideology at the zenith of her career. At her acceptance speech for the 2015 Sports Illustrated Sportsperson of the Year award and before her victory against Kerber, for example, she recited her favourite Maya Angelou poem, Still I Rise, which ends with the words … ‘I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
‘I rise, I rise, I rise.’
The iconic poem served as a source of inspiration for her leading up to her historic win and throughout her career, she noted. “I’ve had people put me down because I didn’t look like them — I look stronger,” Williams said during her 2015 acceptance speech. “I’ve had people look past me because of the colour of my skin. I’ve had people overlook me because I was a woman. I’ve had critics say I would never win another Grand Slam when I was only at number seven and now here I stand today, with 21 Grand Slam titles. And I’m still going.”
After her Wimbledon victory, Serena spoke on overcoming obstacles to reach dreams, reflecting her favourite American author’s inspirational and triumphant tones.
Overcoming adversity
Serena had more than a fair share of scrapes and losses. She underwent knee surgery in August 2003, and in September, her half-sister Yetunde Price was murdered in Los Angeles, California. Dogged by injuries and a general lack of motivation to stay fit or compete at the same level she once had, Serena seemed burned out and saw her tennis ranking slump to 139 three years after.
She credited her religious faith, as well as a life-changing journey to West Africa for renewing her pride and competitive fire. By 2009, she had released a new autobiography, Queen of the Court, and surged to the top of the world’s rankings, claiming both the 2009 Australian Open singles (for the fourth time) and Wimbledon 2009 singles (for the third time).
But she ran into more trouble when she blasted a lineswomen for a foot-fault called near the end of a semi-final loss to eventual champion Kim Clijsters at the U.S. Open. She also suffered a series of health scares, including a blood clot in one of her lungs, which kept her away from tennis for several months.
Following several procedures, including one to remove a hematoma, speculation rose as to whether Serena would retire from the sport. Then she stumbled badly at the 2012 French Open, enduring a first-round loss for the first time at a major tournament.
She returned to beat rival, Maria Sharapova at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games to take her first gold medal in women’s singles and claimed her fourth overall Olympic gold medal with Venus in the women’s doubles.
A sister and fashionista
To deal with her 2015 US Open disappointment, Serena turned to fashion. “It’s been keeping me busy and keeping me happy because I love fashion. Everyone knows I love fashion, so it’s been really great,” she said of her default coping mechanism.
Fashion is a passion shared by the sisters. Venus owns EleVen, a women’s tennis apparel brand, while Serena vends personal designs via outlets. The close-knit sisters lived together for more than a dozen years in a gated Palm Beach Gardens enclave in Florida, but they went their separate ways after Serena bought a mansion in nearby Jupiter in December 2013.
There the parallels end. In matters tender than formidable biceps and bulging veins, Serena inhabits a world of her own. A fierce competitor on-court, she attacks the supplementary vocation of fashion design with comparable gusto. She expanded her brand into film and television.
Seeking educational opportunities for underprivileged youths around the world, the tennis star also formed the Serena Williams Foundation and built schools in Africa.
Her relationships
By some stretch of the imagination, Serena, aka ‘Meka’, consumes opponents for breakfast, does fashion for lunch and considers lovers for dinner.
Her busty front and voluptuous behind induce contrasting reactions. While critics hand out derogatory monikers as ‘Serena Stoutarm’ or ‘King of the WTA’, many a male fan would own up to a lasting fascination with her athletic derrière.
B y online accounts, Serena’s longest relationship has lasted three years and two months, and her shortest, one month, for an average relationship span of 11 months.
Rumoured recently to have dated famous Canadian rapper, Drake, Serena has obviously moved on after the 29-year-old refused to make a commitment. By most accounts, Serena dates Reddit co-founder, Alexis Ohanian, best known as one of the co-founders of “the front page of the internet”. He is a 32-year-old Brooklyn-based internet entrepreneur, activist and investor with a net worth of $4 millon.
Despite competition from rivals, including Maria Sharapova, and muted patronage from the corporate world, Serena has maintained pole position. Through the rumours, around competition rules, over the criticism and at the podium, Serena rises, always.
