By: JJ G

Serena Williams was 17 when she won her first Grand Slam in 1999 at the U.S. Open. Serena Williams has been playing tennis since fourteen, and with twenty-seven years of professional experience, she is ending her career. Williams hopes that her retirement will help her prioritize her family, particularly her 5-year-old daughter Olympia. “Olympia does not like when I play tennis,” Serena said in a recent interview. “It is not that I have lost my passion for tennis, it’s just that I want to focus on other areas of my life.”

Serena was born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan. But she grew up in Compton, California. That is where she and her sister first started playing tennis. Their dad, Richard, was their first coach.

Next, Williams is looking to focus on her business ventures and being a good mom. She wants to see what she can do with her life. “She does not want to be a good mom, she wants too be a great mom.”

Before this year’s tournaments started, no tennis player had won more major championships than Williams had in the Open Era, the period starting in 1968 when tennis tournaments began professionally that were open to any tennis player.

In the 1990s, tennis had very few black players, but that did not stop her she and her sister, Venus. Together they won thirty Grand Slams. Williams is tennis player Naomi Osaka’s role model. “No one else changed the sport as much as she did, against all the odds,” Osaka said.

It is not just women and girls that look up to the Williams sisters. British race car driver Lewis Hamilton said, “Especially growing up in my sport, where I’m the only person of color seeing these two prominent figures really gave me a lot confidence that I can do something similar.” Even today people call her the GOAT (greatest of all time) of tennis.