Friday, April 3, 2009

Serena Williams

Born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, MI;
Daughter of: Richard (a security agency owner and tennis coach) and Oracene Williams
Religion: Jehovah's Witness.

Memberships: Women's Tennis Association.
Career: Professional tennis player, 1995 -; actress, 2002 - designer, 2003 --.

Life's Work
Ranked number one in the world among female tennis professionals in 2002, Serena Williams had become one of the sport's most exciting and closely watched young players. With her older sister Venus, she formed half of a tennis-prodigy pair that had been making headlines from an early age. As an African American in an historically white-and European-dominated sport, she found herself in the spotlight and under scrutiny. Serena and Venus Williams were coached by their father, Richard, an unorthodox career-builder whose methods stirred comment and controversy. Beyond all these reasons Serena Williams caught the attention of tennis fans simply because she was a player of extraordinary ability and dynamism. She rose to the very top of her game achieving the No. 1 ranking among female tennis players in the world in 2002 and winning seven Grand Slam events by 2005. Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan, on September 26, 1981, but she and her sister were raised in the economically depressed and often violence-riddled Los Angeles suburb of Compton. Her father, Richard Williams, ran a private security firm, and her mother Oracene (who often uses the name Brandy) was a nurse. A fan of televised tennis, Richard Williams dreamed of the opportunities that might await his offspring-to-be: "I went to my wife and said, 'Let's have kids and make them tennis players,'" he told Newsweek. Venus, born in 1980, and Serena, the youngest daughter, showed promise from the start. "Venus and Serena took to tennis as soon as rackets were put in their hands," older sister Lyndrea told Sport magazine.

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