Not everybody in this universe is lucky enough at a certain age to stardom. She’s pretty, adorable, and sparkling. Testifying about her past, you would know that the whole world has plotted for her Serena. Around the world for 25 years, you need only hear or read her first name to recognize this singular athlete. From the precocious teen queen to the record-smashing 30-something, Serena Williams dominated, transformed, and transcended tennis.
Less than a month short of her 41 st birthday, the kid who grew up in violent, gang-ridden Compton, California, (probably) hung up her racket losing in the third round of the US Open. The GOAT — Whatever your feelings are about Serena, she clearly earned the mythical “Greatest of All Time” accolade. She amassed an Open Era record 23 Grand Slam singles titles, one more than Steffi Graf, four more than 1920s-’30s superstar Helen Wills, and five more than Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert. Moreover, Serena, like Graf, captured a gold medal at the Olympics, which reinstituted tennis as an official medal sport in 1988. She also racked up a near-perfect 14-1 Fed Cup record, won five WTA Finals, and had five No. 1 year-end rankingsA disappointed Serena fell one Major short of tying Margaret Court’s all-time
record of 24. She confided, “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that record. I didn’t get there. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary.”Indeed, it was even more extraordinary because her competition was much tougher than Court’s.
To wit, Court won 11 of her Majors at the Australian Open from 1960 to 1973, when its fields were usually quite weak. In sharp contrast, Serena dominated the greatest era in women’s tennis history, 1999 to 2010, which featured current and future Hall of Famers Venus Williams, Monica Seles, Justine Henin, Maria Sharapova, Martina Hingis, Kim Clijsters, Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, and Amelie Mauresmo
