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Serena Williams

Enters First Grand Slam Tourney

At the age of 16, in January of 1998, Williams entered her first Grand Slam tournament—the Australian Open—after winning a qualifying match. Facing off against second-seeded Davenport, who had defeated her at the Ameritech Cup in late 1997, she turned the tables, handily winning the match. Venus shocked top-ranked Martina Hingis. When the two sisters met on the court in the second round of the finals, Venus carried the day, taking the match 7-6, 6-1. Just to show there were no hard feelings, a smiling Serena and Venus posed for photographers after the match.

Chronology

1981	Born in Saginaw, Michigan, on September 26
1991-95	Studies tennis at Ric Macci's academy in Delray Beach, Florida
1995	Makes professional debut at Bell Challenge in Vanier, Quebec, Canada
1998	Enters Australian Open, her first Grand Slam tournament
1999	Graduates from Driftwood Academy of Lake Park, Florida, in August

Related Biography: Father/Coach Richard Williams

The biggest booster of Serena and Venus Williams is their father, who has also served as their coach and manager from the very beginning of their tennis careers. In fact, it's doubtful either Williams sister would be playing tennis at all were it not for Richard Williams' fervent belief that he could raise his daughters to be champions on the court. Working with the three older sisters of Venus and Serena, Williams had had little success, but his two youngest girls took to the game from the start.

Despite his undeniable success in coaxing and coaching Venus and Serena to positions of dominance in the sport, Williams continues to come under fire for some of his unorthodox techniques but mostly for what he has to say about his perceptions of racism and the stuffiness of the people who run the game. He also shows no lack of confidence in his ability to guide his daughters to tennis stardom. He admitted however, to Kevin Chappell of Ebony that sometimes the criticism hurts. "When people criticize you, I don't care how much you say it doesn't bother you, it does. It bothers you when people criticize you, especially when you're doing the best that you can do. Because once you are doing the best you can do, you realize there is nothing else you can do. They are criticizing you, and you can't fight back, you can't make a noise. It's almost like someone has beaten you dead. It's somewhat disturbing."

When Serena, his younger daughter with former wife Oracene, was still quite young, Williams moved his family from Saginaw, Michigan, to the dicey neighborhoods of Compton, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. He taught his girls the game on the public tennis courts of Compton, an area so riddled with gang violence that the girls had to be schooled in how to dodge errant bullets. In 1991, he sent Serena and Venus off to Florida to train at the tennis academy of Ric Macci in Delray Beach. Both girls turned professional by the age of 14 and have been guided by their father through every step of their careers.

After losing her match with Venus at the Australian Open in January 1998, Serena trailed her sister in the rankings, but she was the first of the two to win a Grand Slam title. Still only 16 years old, she teamed with Max Mirnyi of Belarus to win the mixed doubles tournament at Wimbledon in July of 1998. Although the spotlight was still trained on Venus, more and more observers of the game began to predict that Serena, with her power, eventually would overshadow her older sister. By August of 1998, Serena's ranking had improved to number 21. Whatever the fans or critics were saying, nothing seemed to have any effect on the close relationship between the sisters. That relationship—seemingly strengthened by their occasional face-to-face meetings on the court—captured the interest of the media, which ran numerous features about the sisters. Away from tennis, the two loved to gossip about boys and shop, the latter pastime easily

Serena Williams

financed by the sisters' lucrative product endorsement deals. In 1998 Serena signed a $12 million deal with Puma, helping her to keep pace with Venus, who had an equally impressive deal with Reebok.

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