Serena Williams

All titles except 2002 Leipzig won with Venus Williams as partner. In April 11, 2005 Phelps was a guest judge in the Miss USA beauty pageant. 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. Phelps cannot swim for the team, however, because his endorsement deal with Speedo has caused him to forfeit his amateur status. These controversies re-emerged in April 2005 as MTV announced plans to broadcast a reality show around the lives of Serena and Venus Williams. Phelps is also serving as a volunteer assistant coach and is taking classes, intending to major in sports marketing or sports management. However in 2005 she won her seventh Grand Slam event defeating Maria Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport en route to the title. Phelps is following his longtime coach, Bob Bowman, who left Phelps' previous swim team to become the head swimming coach of the University of Michigan varsity swim team.

Disappointing performances during 2004 have been cited as proof of this lack of focus. As of 2005, Phelps is attending University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Some believe that she is far too concerned with her fashion and acting careers, and has not focused enough recently on her tennis. He was also fined $250, required to attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving meeting, and to give speeches to students at three high schools by June 1, 2005. Controversy has arisen over Williams's level of dedication to the sport. On December 29, 2004, Phelps was sentenced to 18 months of probation. The injury also forced her to pull out of the 2004 Summer Olympics. Phelps pled guilty to driving while impaired, avoiding charges of driving under the influence, underage drinking and failure to stop at a stop sign.

On August 1, she announced her withdrawal from the Rogers Cup due to the same injury. His specific blood alcohol content was not released because of police policy, although in the state of Maryland, the legal limit is .08. 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. Phelps, who was 19 at the time (21 is the legal drinking age in the U.S.), was arrested and cited for driving under the influence of alcohol. 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. On November 4, 2004, Phelps was arrested in Salisbury, Maryland for driving under the influence after being pulled over for running a stop sign in his 2005 Land Rover with two friends. Serena withdrew from Australian Open 2004 to continue rehabilitating her left knee. Phelps graduated Towson High School in the Spring of 2004.

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. See also: Swimming at the 2004 Summer Olympics. The Williams siblings are the first two women in Grand Slam history to square off in four consecutive finals. NBC Olympic coverage of the 2004 games always showed him listening to his iPod with Bose headphones before competing. 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. This gave Phelps an automatic entry into the medley relay, but as he was exhausted from the many races he had competed in over the preceding week, he gave up the butterfly leg to Crocker. The American medley team went on to win the event in world record time, and since he had raced in a preliminary heat of the medley relay, Phelps was also awarded a gold medal along with the team members that competed in the final. 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. Traditionally, the olympian who places highest in a individual event will be automatically given the corresponding leg of the 4x100m medley relay.

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. On August 20, in the 100m butterfly final, Phelps defeated American teammate Ian Crocker (who holds the world record in the event) by just 0.04 seconds. 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). On August 14, 2004, he won his first Olympic gold, in the 400m individual medley, setting another new world record (4:08.26). Among boos and catcalls, frustrated Serena lost to Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium (Venus lost to Vera Zvonareva in the fourth round). The episode only made it yet more clear that Phelps's participation in at least some of the relay events would depend solely on his performance in the individual events. For the first time since January 2002, the Grand Slam final did not read Williams-Williams at the French Open in June 2003. They claimed that Phelps is not a top swimmer in the event and his presence could compromise the US team's performance in the name of what was called a "media circus" for Phelps to win eight gold medals.

Her feat was coined the "Serena Slam". 4x100m freestyle team, publicly criticized the possibility of allowing Phelps to swim in the 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. and Jason Lezak, both of whom were aiming to be on the U.S. 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. Only a few days before the beginning of the swimming competition in Athens 2004, however, Gary Hall Jr. Martina Navratilova, in an article in June 2003, stated that, given equal equipment, at her peak she would have been able to beat Serena. Had he won seven golds, he would have been eligible for a US $1 million bonus from his sponsor, Speedo.

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. However, he did win eight medals in one Olympics, a feat only achieved by Aleksandr Dityatin, a gymnast, in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. 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). As his 4x100m freestyle relay team only won a bronze medal, and he personally placed for bronze in the 200m freestyle, he fell just short of that record. Her serve is also extremely powerful—in sheer speed, comparable to some of the male players on the tour. Phelps had the chance to break that record in 2004 by competing in eight swimming events: the 200m freestyle, the 100m butterfly, the 200m butterfly, the 100m backstroke, the 200m backstroke, the 200m individual medley, the 400m individual medley, the 4x100m freestyle relay and the 4x100m medley relay. 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. Phelps' dominance brought comparisons to Puerto Rican-American swimmer, Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals in the 1972 Summer Olympics, a world record.

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). He won the 2003 Sullivan Award. In 2002, she won the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics. 2001 was the third consecutive year in which she finished in the top 10 reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in two years. Then on July 7, 2004, Phelps broke his own world record again in the 400m individual medley (4:08.41) during the U.S. In 2000, she won the doubles gold medal at the Olympics with sister Venus. In 2003, Phelps broke his own world record in the 400m individual medley (4:09.09) and in June, he broke the world record in the 200m individual medley (1:56.04).

4 in just her third full season winning first five titles of her career including her first Grand Slam. At the 2002 Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Phelps also broke the world record for the 400m individual medley and set American marks in the 100m butterfly and the 200m individual medley. She finished 1999 in the top 5 at no. Five months after Sydney, Phelps broke the world record in the 200m butterfly and then broke his own record again at the World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan (1:54.58). The next day, she and sister Venus won the doubles championship at the same tournament. While he did not win a medal at the 2000 Olympics, Phelps proceeded to make a name for himself in swimming shortly thereafter. 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. Michael Phelps appeared at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney as the youngest American male swimmer at an Olympic Games in 68 years at the age of 15.

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. Michael Phelps (born June 30, 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American swimmer and world-record holder (as of 2004). 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.