There are few professional Tennis players who have had the experience of battling their way through the initial stages of a Grand Slam tournament only to look across the net in the Final to be confronted by their own sibling. This is, however, a scenario which the Williams sisters have become accustomed to in recent years. Venus and Serena are the two youngest of the five daughters of Richard Williams. They were raised in the rough L.A. suburb of Compton. Determined for his daughters to find a way out of their deprived neighbourhood, Richard Williams drilled them in the fundamentals of Tennis. When Serena and Venus showed clear aptitude for the sport, he started them on a carefully regimented training programme and began to enter them in youth competitions.
Serena was born in Michigan in 1981. Despite being a year younger than Venus, she managed to win a Grand Slam tournament before her sister. She subsequently won another seven Grand Slams and a number of other Singles and Doubles titles. Before 2002, Serena existed somewhat in the shadow of Venus, but emphatically bucked that trend when she won the French Open, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open that year. Since that point, she has been a prominent figure in women's tennis, although her forays in other areas such as fashion have seen her influence dwindle.
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