The Williams sisters, Venus and Serena, became two of the best athletes the tennis world had ever seen. With a combined 33 gland slam wins, the Williams sisters are considered the most dominant sisters in the sports world.
Serena Williams
Former world No.1 in women’s singles tennis, Serena Williams won 23 Grand Slam titles during her career, which is the most won by any player in the Open Era. She was ranked No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002, and held that status for 319 weeks until 2017. At one point, she held the ranking for 186 consecutive weeks, setting a record for the longest time held.
She holds the record for the most titles won at the Australian Open with seven wins, and most women’s singles matches won at majors with 351. Serena earned almost $29 million in prize money and endorsements in 2016, making her the highest-paid female athletes and repeated the accomplishment in 2017. She was selected as the only woman to join Forbes’ list of the 100 highest-paid athletes.
Venus Williams
Venus Williams was also a former No. 1 tennis player, ranked No. 1 for the first time on February 25, 2002. She was also the first African American woman to do so in the Open Era. She has seven Grand Slam titles, which is more than any other active female tennis player except her sister.
The last time she won a Grand Slam was in 2017 when she won the Australian Open title. She has won five times in Wimbledon.
During her career, she had numerous injuries and illnesses that brought her career down. Those injuries forced her to forfeit from matches and retire several times.
In 2011 she was diagnosed with Sjogren’s Syndrome, inhibiting her from playing the whole year. Despite the downside, she always came back and showed her dominance on the court.
Doubles and Sister Rivalry
The Williams Sisters are one of the winningest duos in women’s doubles history. They won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles and are unbeaten in the Grand Slam finals.
They also have three gold medals in the Olympics. The first time they won a Grand Slam was back in 1999, in the French Open. The last time they won was in 2016 in Wimbledon.
There have been many times the two sisters faced each other as opponents as well. The two have played together in 30 professional matches since 1998, and Venus has won 12 of those matches while Serena won 18.
They met in nine Grand Slam finals matches, and Serena won seven of them. In 2002, they played each other in all of the Grand Slam finals.
Growth Process
Even though the Williams sisters asserted their dominance on the court and ushered in a new era of power and speed that changed women’s tennis forever, they had to experience and undergo numerous obstacles before they met their glory.
They were taught by their father, Richard Williams, who taught himself how to play the game by watching instructional videos and passing on the knowledge to his two daughters. They trained in a dusty and dirty tennis court where drug addicts’ syringes were thrown, and gunfire was heard randomly during the training.
Along with the gun violence, they experienced heavy racism. During the semifinals of the 2001 Indian Wells competition, Venus had to pull out due to tendinitis in her knee, and the angered crowd chanted racial slurs to her and her dad. Recently, two Australian football players dressed up in blackface to imitate the sisters in September 2018.
