Venus Williams Biography

Venus Ebone Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an Afro-American former World No. 1 tennis champion, born in Lynwood, California. She is the daughter of Richard and Oracene Williams and the older sister of another tennis champion, Serena Williams.

Venus turned professional on October 31st, 1994, then won many important championships, including two Gold medals at the Sydney Summer Olympics in 2000, the 1999 French Open doubles (with sister Serena as her partner), and five other doubles and two mixed doubles grand slams. In 2000, she won the Wimbledon championship and the U.S. Open in singles and defended both titles in 2001. In 2002 and 2003, Venus reached five major finals, and lost all of them to her sister Serena.

When Venus and Serena won the 1999 French Open doubles title, they became the first pair of sisters to win a doubles title in the 20th century. They remain a dominant doubles team when they choose to play.

In 2003, Williams faced her sister Serena Williams at the 2003 Wimbledon finals despite suffering a severe abdominal injury which required medical attention during the match. Venus eventually lost to her sister Serena, 6-4, 4-6, 2-6.

Venus' older sister, Yetunde Price, was killed by gunshots in the Compton area on the morning of September 14, 2003.

The era of domination by the Williams sisters began to close out after the murder of their sister. Both Venus and Serena suffered injuries (Venus with a severe adductor muscle tear) that kept them out of the latter part of the 2003 season. In that time, Belgian players Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne took over as the most dominant players in the game.

Upon their return in 2004, the Williams sisters failed to recapture their previous best, including Venus's controversial defeat in a second round loss to Croatian Karolina Sprem at Wimbledon. The referee of the match, Ted Watts, awarded Sprem an unearned point in the deciding tiebreak. Upon the conclusion of the match, he was quickly relieved of his duties. Her sister, Serena Williams, made the finals of 2004 Wimbledon, losing to Maria Sharapova.

Venus' 2005 season began similarly patchy, with one Tier III title (Istanbul) and a series of unusual losses. However, media attention and public interest in both of the Williams sisters continued with their fashion and interior design companies as well as their reality TV series.

At the 2005 French Open Venus lost in the third-round to 15-year old Bulgarian Sesil Karatantcheva. Drug tests taken of Karatatcheva at the French Open showed that she could have been doping at the time. She has since suffered a two year suspension from the sport.

The following month, Venus reached the 2005 Wimbledon finals without dropping a set. She defeated the defending champion Maria Sharapova in the semifinals in straight sets with a skillful display of speed, athleticism and power. She decisively broke Sharapova's serve four times (Sharapova had lost only one service game in reaching the semifinal). This marked the sixth consecutive year that at least one of the Williams sisters reached the final.

In the longest Wimbledon final in history, Venus overcame a match point against her to triumph over top seed Lindsay Davenport 4-6 7-6(4) 9-7 to claim the 2005 Wimbledon Championship - her third Wimbledon title in six years. This was the first time in 70 years that a player had won after facing match point during the women's championship. In addition, Williams, as the 14th seed in the draw, was the lowest seed to win the title in Wimbledon history.

At the age of 18 she served the fastest serve by any woman (127.4 MPH) to win match point with an ace against Mary Pierce at the semifinals of the Swisscom Challenge in Zurich, Switzerland.

In 2005, TENNIS Magazine put her in 25th place in its list of 40 Greatest Players of the TENNIS era.

On January 16, 2006, Williams had a surprising loss in her opener at the Australian Open, losing 6-2, 0-6, 7-9 to Tszvetana Pironkova. It was her earliest loss at the Australian Open.