| Serena Williams |
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Serena Williams really needs no introduction. At present, she is the number one ranked female player in the world of professional tennis. At only 27, she has won a total of 20 Grand Slam titles (8 women's doubles, 2 mixed doubles and 10 singles), has held all four Grand Slam titles at once and is the current champion in the Australian Open and the US Open. Williams is nothing less than a living legend in tennis and was named Tennis magazine's 17th best athlete of all time in 2005. She is sure to achieve much more yet as an athlete and enjoys incredibly popularity with fans.
Serena Williams really needs no introduction. At present, she is the number one ranked female player in the world of professional tennis. At only 27, she has won a total of 20 Grand Slam titles (8 women's doubles, 2 mixed doubles and 10 singles), has held all four Grand Slam titles at once and is the current champion in the Australian Open and the US Open. Williams is nothing less than a living legend in tennis and was named Tennis magazine's 17th best athlete of all time in 2005. She is sure to achieve much more yet as an athlete and enjoys incredibly popularity with fans. Williams is the youngest of the family's five daughters. She was born in Saginaw, MI but moved with her family to Los Angeles while still very young. Her father Richard wanted to see his daughters achieve success as tennis players and began coaching them himself, playing on Compton's public courts. Out of the Williams sisters, Serena and her sister Venus were especially talented players; Serena in fact won her first tournament while not yet five - by the time she reached the age of ten, she had won no less than forty-six tournaments! The Williams children were all homeschooled; their father stopped sending his tennis playing daughters to national junior tournaments, fearing that they would have to deal with racism on the court. Instead, he sent Serena to Rick Macci's tennis school in Florida, where she trained with Andy Roddick (who Williams actually defeated in a practice match). Years of constant training have made Serena Williams the almost unbelievably skilled athlete that she is today. She primarily is a baseline player, but she has a very aggressive style which focuses on taking control of rallies, making her a fearsome opponent. Her strokes, whether serves, groundstrokes or returns have a lot of power behind them. She is one of the most powerful servers ever to play the game, with serves often reaching 120 mph (and in Charleston in 2008, she hit record breaking 127 and 129 mph serves). Her return serves are no less impressive - opponents are sometimes simply overpowered by her phenomenal skills, which include the ability to hit flat serves and topspin serves at either corner of the service box. Besides her unsurpassable technique and skill on the court, she is well known for her personal style. It must run in the family, because the Williams family has founded a clothing line called Aneres. Williams has made many movie and television appearances, as well as having posed for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue in 2003. She has a number of lucrative endorsement contracts for various products and has formed a partnership with Nike to create custom sportswear. Outside of tennis and fashion, Williams actively participates in charity work, having funded the construction of a Kenyan secondary school and has won the Avon Foundation's Celebrity Role Model Award for her help in raising money for breast cancer research. DISCLAIMER: This article is provided as information only and is not to be taken as financial advice. Sports quotes will motivate you to be your best in any walk of life. For interesting and inspiring sports quotations drop in to Nothing But Sports.http://nothingbutsports.info/ |