Venus Williams

Background

Venus Ebony Starr Williams was born to Richard Williams and Oracene Price in Lynwood, California, on June 17, 1980. When Williams was seven years old, a prominent local tennis player named Tony Chesta observed her and immediately recognized her potential in the sport. When she was 10, her family moved from Compton, California, to West Palm Beach, Florida, so Williams and her sister, Serena, could attend Rick Macci’s tennis academy, which took notice of the sisters and provided more coaching. However, when Williams was eleven, Richard stopped sending her to national junior tennis competitions, preferring for her to take things gently and concentrate on her studies. Another factor was racial discrimination, as he had allegedly overheard other players’ parents disparaging the Williams sisters during competitions. Williams was ranked number one among the under-12 players in Southern California, with a 63-0 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour. Furthermore, Williams’ father took his girls out of Macci’s academy in 1995 and took over all coaching at their house.

Williams’s parents trained her and Serena. She turned pro in 1994 and won her first major title at the 1997 U.S. Open, won the Wimbledon and U.S. Open titles in 2000 and 2001, and Olympic singles gold in Sydney in 2000. On February 25, 2002, she became the first African American woman to earn the world’s number one singles ranking in the Open Era and the second all-time after Althea Gibson. Between 2002 and 2003, she reached four successive grand finals, all of which she lost to her sister, Serena. Between 2003 and 2006, injuries hampered her to the extent that she only won one major championship. However, Williams rediscovered her form in 2007, winning Wimbledon, which she repeated the succeeding year.

She reclaimed the second-best singles ranking in the world in 2010 but suffered yet another setback from an injury. Beginning in 2014, Williams gradually regained her form, leading to two major final appearances in 2017 at Wimbledon and the Australian Open. Serena and Williams have never lost in a Grand slam doubles final, and Williams has won seven major singles titles in addition to her 14 women’s doubles major victories. She and Serena achieved a non-calendar year Grand Slam at the French Open on June 7, 2010, and she attained the world’s top doubles ranking for the first time.

Adding to Williams’s gold in 2000 and her mixed doubles silver in 2016, the couple won three Olympic gold medals in women’s doubles victories, both from 1998. On the women’s professional tennis tour, the Williams sisters are credited with bringing in a new dispensation of power and athleticism. Williams is the only active player with more singles titles on the Women’s Tennis Association (W.T.A) Tour, trailing only her sister. Her total of 73 W.T.A. trophies, including 22 W.T.A. doubles titles and two mixed doubles titles, makes her second only to Serena Williams among active players. Her 35-match winning streak, which stretches from the Wimbledon Championships in 2000 to the Generali Ladies Linz final in 2000, is the longest in the 21st century thus far.

She is also one of just two active players, along with Serena, to have gotten to the singles finals of all four majors. Williams won the season prize money twice, in 2001 and 2017, and is second only to Serena in all-time career prize money earnings, with the U.S. $42 Million approximately as of March 2022.