Serena Williams really needs no introduction. At present, she is the number one ranked female player in the world of professional tennis. At only 27, she has won a total of 20 Grand Slam titles (8 women’s doubles, 2 mixed doubles and 10 singles), has held all four Grand Slam titles at once and is the current champion in the Australian Open and the US Open. Williams is nothing less than a living legend in tennis and was named Tennis magazine’s 17th best athlete of all time in 2005. She is sure to achieve much more yet as an athlete and enjoys incredibly popularity with fans.

Serena Williams was born in September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan by parents Richard and Oracene Price Williams. She is the youngest of the five siblings; Lyndrea, Isha, Yetunde and Venus. When the family moved to Los Angeles, Richard has dreamed of making one of his daughters a tennis superstar. Serena, along with her other siblings, was personally coached by parents and began playing tennis at young age and trained at the public courts in Compton, California. She participated in numerous clinics, particularly those that are targeted for at-risk youth. At the age of four and a half, Serena already won her first tournament. By the age of 10, she already participated in 49 tournaments and has won 46 of them.

The Williams children were all homeschooled; their father stopped sending his tennis playing daughters to national junior tournaments, fearing that they would have to deal with racism on the court. Instead, he sent Serena to Rick Macci’s tennis school in Florida, where she trained with Andy Roddick (who Williams actually defeated in a practice match).

Through the years of her intense training, Serena became an outstanding athlete. Although she is primarily a baseline player, she builds her game around taking immediate control of the rallies, making her known as an aggressive player in court. She delivers powerful and consistent serve, return serve and groundstrokes on both forehand and backhand wing. With her playing style, she consistently delivers powerful and smooth motion serves, which was noted as the best in the women’s game. Her serves even earned the respects of the crowd of the WTA tour. Serena frequently hits at 120 mph. she even made record with her 127 and 129 mph serve in 2008 at Charleston. Her capability of overpowering her opponents when returning serve is absolute with her ability to hit flat and topspin serves on both corners of the service box.

Besides her unsurpassable technique and skill on the court, she is well known for her personal style. It must run in the family, because the Williams family has founded a clothing line called Aneres. Williams has made many movie and television appearances, as well as having posed for Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue in 2003. She has a number of lucrative endorsement contracts for various products and has formed a partnership with Nike to create custom sportswear. Outside of tennis and fashion, Williams actively participates in charity work, having funded the construction of a Kenyan secondary school and has won the Avon Foundation’s Celebrity Role Model Award for her help in raising money for breast cancer research.