Serena Williams

Serena Williams is an American former professional tennis player whose 25-year career and 23 Grand Slam singles titles made her one of the most-iconic tennis players in the history of the sport — and one of the most-significant American athletes of her generation. She was born Serena Jameka Williams on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, the youngest of five children. Her father Richard Williams developed both Serena and her older sister Venus into professional tennis players from his court-construction work at the Compton, California public courts where they trained as children.

She turned professional in 1995 at age 14. Her Grand Slam breakthrough came at the 1999 US Open at age 17 — making her the first African-American woman to win a Grand Slam singles title since Althea Gibson in 1958. Her 23 career Grand Slam singles titles — seven Australian Opens, three French Opens, seven Wimbledons, and six US Opens — placed her one short of Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 (set during the pre-Open Era and debated as a comparable record). She held the world #1 ranking for 319 weeks across her career, and was world #1 for 186 consecutive weeks (the longest such streak in tennis history alongside Steffi Graf).

Her career was unusually shaped by her parallel work with her sister Venus Williams. The Williams sisters won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together, three Olympic gold medals (Sydney 2000, Beijing 2008, London 2012), and met in 31 professional singles matches across their careers — one of the most-iconic athletic-sibling rivalries in sports history.

Her 2017 Australian Open singles title was won while she was eight weeks pregnant with her first child. She returned to professional tennis in March 2018 and competed at four Grand Slam finals between 2018 and 2019 (losing each), marking the "new mother on tour" period of her career. She announced her retirement from tennis at the 2022 US Open. Beyond tennis, she has built a substantial business empire — including Serena Ventures (her venture-capital firm focused on women-and-minority founders) and S by Serena (her clothing line). She married Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian in 2017, and the couple has two daughters.

Her name Serena is from the Latin serenus meaning "clear" or "calm." Serena has been continuously climbing in American naming since the 1990s.