Serena Williams

All titles except 2002 Leipzig won with Venus Williams as partner. Fans and foes alike have both expressed interest in hearing Patterson sing. Williams was also on Punk'd when Williams was trying to save a Punk'd problem kid played by Rob Pinkston until Ashton Kutcher came out from the SUV with a baby. As her coach said in a recent TV interview, "It's hard to top an All Around Gold." Gymnastics or not, Patterson has made several comments about trying a singing career. These controversies re-emerged in April 2005 as MTV announced plans to broadcast a reality show around the lives of Serena and Venus Williams. It's unclear if she'll go for the 2008 Olympic Games. However in 2005 she won her seventh Grand Slam event defeating Maria Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport en route to the title. For the time being, she's returned to an almost normal life in Allen, TX.

Disappointing performances during 2004 have been cited as proof of this lack of focus. Carly Patterson has made numerous guest appearances and has done the talk show circuit since winning gold. Some believe that she is far too concerned with her fashion and acting careers, and has not focused enough recently on her tennis. To 2004 Olympic Games she was prepared by her two Russian coaches: the famous Soviet acrobat Evgeny Marchenko, who immigrated to the United States from Latvia after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, and Natalya Boyarskaya. Controversy has arisen over Williams's level of dedication to the sport. On August 23, she competed in the finals for the beam event where she received a score of 9.775 and won the silver medal. The injury also forced her to pull out of the 2004 Summer Olympics. In addition, she also won a silver medal in the Women's Team competition.

On August 1, she announced her withdrawal from the Rogers Cup due to the same injury. During the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Patterson won a gold medal in the Women's Individual All-Around, an achievement that had only been attained by one other American gymnast, Mary Lou Retton, during the Soviet Union-boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics. On July 30, she withdrew from her quarterfinal match against Russia's Vera Zvonareva with a left knee injury joining her sister who had earlier pulled out due to a sprained right knee. Gymnastics Championships. She reached the final of Wimbledon once again, but lost to the 17-year-old Russian player Maria Sharapova, heralded as one of the greatest young talents the game has seen. In 2004, she tied with Courtney Kupets to become a co-champion in the all-around event at the U.S. Serena withdrew from Australian Open 2004 to continue rehabilitating her left knee. She also helped her team to earn the team gold medal.

Williams' older sister, Yetunde Price, was murdered on the morning of September 14, 2003, by gunshots as she passed by in a car driven by a man in the Compton area. At the 2003 National Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California, she earned the all-around silver medal—the first time an American woman had won an all-around medal at that contest since 1994. The Williams siblings are the first two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals. She had previously received fourth place in 2000 and third place in 2001. Even this so-called "Serena Slam" is not a true Grand Slam—tennis purists demand that a player collect all four major titles in a single calendar year to be deemed to have achieved a Grand Slam—it was still a remarkable and rare accomplishment, made all the more remarkable for the fact that Serena had to beat her sister each time. Junior National All-Around champion in 2002. When Serena beat her sister Venus to win the Australian Open on January 24, 2003, that was only the sixth time a woman has held all four of tennis' major championships at the same time, and the first since Steffi Graf in 1994. Patterson was named the U.S.

At Wimbledon in the 2003 tournament, Serena Williams became back to back champion, by defeating Henin-Hardenne in the Semifinals, and her sister Venus in the Finals on July 5, with a score of 4-6, 6-4, 6-2. She was suffering from a stomach illness, however, and she missed three landings on the floor exercise and finished seventh overall. Henin-Hardenne commented: "Everybody's happy today but the Williams sisters". Henin-Hardenne was responsible for two of Serena's three losses in 2003 (all on clay). At the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, she was scored second in the all-around before the final rotation. Among boos and catcalls, frustrated Serena lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium (Venus lost to Vera Zvonareva in the fourth round). After the 2003 World Championships in Gymnastics, this dismount was named the Patterson in her honor. For the first time since January 2002, the Grand Slam final did not read Williams-Williams at the French Open in June 2003. At the 2001 American Team Cup, she first performed her signature beam dismount, an Arabian double front.

Her feat was coined the "Serena Slam". In 2000, Patterson participated in the Top Gym Tournament in Belgium; she won the silver medal in all-around and the bronze medal for balance beam, which she has said is her favorite event. She won the Australian Open in 2003, her fourth straight Grand Slam singles title becoming the fifth woman ever to hold all four titles after Connolly, Court, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf and only the ninth woman ever to win all four Grand Slam events. This was not deemed a Grand Slam by tennis purists, as the four tournaments were not won in the same calendar year. Patterson was at a birthday party at a gymnastics club in 1994 when a coach noticed her doing cartwheels and roundoffs and told her mother that she should start taking lessons, which she did soon afterward. She stated that she believes that Serena's powerful groundstrokes could be negated by extending the rallies and also hitting "junk"—keeping the ball low to make it harder to hit powerful shots. She currently lives in Allen, Texas. Martina Navratilova, in an article in June 2003, stated that, given equal equipment, at her peak she would have been able to beat Serena. Carly Rae Patterson (born February 4, 1988 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American gymnast.

The main weaknesses in her game, similar to her sister Venus, include relatively weak volleying and, because she attempts so many winners, she can occasionally commit large numbers of unforced errors. Serena is also very mobile for her size and power, unlike some of the earlier big hitters in the women's game (for example, Lindsay Davenport). Her serve is also extremely powerful—in sheer speed, comparable to some of the male players on the tour. Against most opponents, her sheer power is enough to win easily, forcing them back behind the baseline to hit their shots, at which point she is able to hit equally powerful winners.

By this stage, Serena had developed the most powerful groundstrokes of any women's tennis player ever (aided, like all players of the modern era, by the advances in racquet technology). In 2002, she won the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. 2001 was the third consecutive year in which she finished in the top 10 reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in two years. In 2000, she won the doubles gold medal at the Olympics with sister Venus.

4 in just her third full season winning first five titles of her career including her first Grand Slam. She finished 1999 in the top 5 at no. The next day, she and sister Venus won the doubles championship at the same tournament. On September 11 of 1999, Serena won her first Grand Slam tournament when she became US Open champion, becoming the first African American woman to win a Grand Slam tournament since Althea Gibson did it in 1958.

Serena has been the focus of many ad campaigns, including one with shoe and clothes maker Puma, which signed her to a 12 million dollar agreement. 7 Steffi Graf in the final at Indian Wells. 8 Mary Pierce in the quarter final, and world no. 2 Lindsay Davenport in the second round, world no.

Ranked number 21, she defeated 3 top 10 players: world no. She defeated Amélie Mauresmo in third set in a final the same day sister Venus won in Oklahoma City marking first time in professional tennis history two sisters won titles in the same week. In 1999, Serena was ranked number 21 worldwide, and she and sister Venus had become mainstream celebrities. She earned 2.6 million dollars in the season.

She won her first pro title in doubles at Oklahoma City with sister Venus becoming the third pair of sisters to win a WTA tour women's doubles title. She won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon and US Open with Max Mirnyi completing a Williams family 1998 mixed doubles Grand Slam as sister Venus won Australian Open and Roland Garros titles with Justin Gimelstob. 10 Spirlea in the 2nd round for her fifth top 10 victory becoming the fastest woman in tennis history to record five top 10 victories (in 16 matches) breaking the previous record set by Monica Seles in 1989 in her 33rd match. At Miami, she defeated world no.

She reached six other quarterfinals during the season. 9 Irina Spirlea in the first. Serena was then expected to do well in her first Grand Slam tournament, but she lost in the second round of the Australian Open to sister Venus after reaching the second round with a victory over world no. Serena felt she had become a top professional after beating Lindsay Davenport in the semi-finals of a minor Australian tournament.

3 Lindsay Davenport in the quarter final. 96 reaching semifinal winning over world no. She began the season in Sydney as a qualifier ranked no. 1998 was the first year in which she finished in the WTA top 20.

99. She finished 1997 in the top 100 at no. She did not give up, and she started winning matches: By 1997, ranked number 304 in the world, she upset Monica Seles and Mary Pierce at the Ameritech Open in Chicago, recording her first career wins over top 10 players. Her first professional event was the Bell Challenge in Quebec, and she was ousted in less than an hour of play.

Because of her age, she was banned from WTA sponsored tournaments, and had to participate in non-WTA events at first. Serena became a professional in September 1995, at the age of 14. Soon Richard, who had struck a deal on behalf of his daughters with a major clothing company, was able to move the rest of the Williams family to West Palm Beach, to be near Serena and Venus. Micci had already helped the careers of Jennifer Capriati and Mary Pierce, among others.

In 1991, Richard Williams, saying that he hoped to prevent his daughters from facing racism, stopped sending them to national junior Tennis tournaments, and Serena attended a Tennis school run by professional player Rick Micci instead. At one point, she replaced sister Venus as the number one ranked tennis player aged 12 or under in California. When Serena was four and a half, she won her first tournament, and she entered 49 tournaments before the age of 10, winning 46 of them. Both Venus and Serena Williams would be taken to Compton area public tennis courts to practice when they were young, and they had to dodge bullets many times during the early practice days.

There, her father dreamed of making at least one of his daughters a tennis superstar, hoping that involvement in sports would give them a way out of that neighborhood. Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan and when she and her four sisters were young, their parents, Richard and Oracene (also called Brandy), took them to the poor and sometimes violent Los Angeles suburb of Compton. She currently resides at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, United States. She is the younger sister of another female tennis champion, Venus Williams.

1 of the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Serena Jamica Williams (born September 26, 1981) is a professional women's tennis player, who has been a former World No. 2003: Australian Open. 2002: Leipzig (with Alexandra Stevenson).

Open. 1999: U.S. 1999: French Open. 1999: Hannover.