Star Facts
- Serena has been ranked World Number 1 on five separate occasions
- She has won more career prize money than any other female athlete in history, over $33m
- In 2011 she appeared in an ad for a tennis video game that was banned for being too sexy!
- Serena is mentioned in songs by the Super Furry Animals and Snoop Dogg
Biography:
One of greatest female tennis players of all time, Serena started playing at age 5. Moving to Florida to train at the famed Rick Macci tennis academy, her father removed them from the school and highly competitive junior game in 1995 and began coaching them himself at home. He has done ever since.
Serena’s first professional event was at the age of 13, and she lost. By age 15, she was already beating Top 10 players like Monica Seles. Developing an aggressive playing style and a powerful serve that some consider the best in the game, she rose to world number 1 until forced out by injury in 2006.
She made her comeback the following year, stating a desire to be number 1 again – tennis legend Pat Cash called her ‘deluded’. She immediately beat world number 2 Maria Sharapova to win the Australian Open. By 2009, battling through a string of injuries, not only was she world number 1 again, but she had amounted more career prize money than any other female athlete in history, and was voted Female Athlete of the Year by a landslide. Take that Pat.
Along with her sister Venus, Serena became a new tennis icon. Revamping the look of the sport with some va-va-voom outfits, catshits, hotpants, denim, a mini trench, you name it. Some laughed, but it did wonders to attract new audiences to the game, and we think she looked cool as hell.