Serena Williams’ legendary tennis career likely over after third-round singles’ play loss at US Open Read more
The 23-year-old had been a star in the making since her 18-month rookie season at the age of just 15. Her breakthrough came in 2009, when she won a junior title and was crowned the 2009 junior Wimbledon champion. She went on to win the U.S. Open title at age 19, and then came the first of six Masters 1000 titles at the age of 20. In 2011, she was the youngest player to win the Wimbledon singles title, and she added the Australian Open mixed doubles title the same year. For her singles titles, she is the most-capped player in Grand Slam events history.
She won 16 Grand Slam singles titles, and 15 of them on clay. She also won 11 doubles Grand Slam titles in singles and 15 in doubles in all. Serena is one of the five players to take part in every Wimbledon Championship since 1950, and one of just three women to do it in all four grand slams. She is also a five-time winner at the Australian Open, and five-time singles champion of the Australian Open or Wimbledon tournament.
Her winning run included a stretch in which Serena was one of eight players to retain the No 1 ranking for the entire calendar year on four consecutive occasions. She also became the only woman to accomplish this over 10 consecutive years.
This week she won the first major for three women simultaneously in the history of the women’s game. After holding serve for a 5-0 lead in the third set, she fought back to level at 5-5, when she had a match point at 2-all.
Serena went on to save the match with a straight-set win over Lucie Safarova, who is ranked as high as No 2 in the world, and just outside the top 30. While her win helped the US Open to its largest ever attendance and TV audience – which was about 12.6 million viewers – the first two majors on this list were largely lost to rainfall, with the
