Venus Ebony Starr Williams was born on June 17, 1980 to American-African Richard and Oracene. Born in Saginaw, Michigan but raised in California, Venus once became the World No. 1. She trained since childhood together with sister Serena, also another former tennis rank No. 1. She dominated the 12 and below competitions in California during her time. Later, the Williams girls would form a formidable force to reckon with in the professional tournaments. To prevent Venus and Serena from confronting racism, their father Richard sent them at Greneleaf Resort and Conference Center in Haines City, Florida, to train with tennis trainer Rick Macci.

Venus debuted as a tennis pro player on October 31, 1994. She wasn’t a regular though until 1994. Thereafter, she began to play in the doubles, allowing her to take home her Grand Slam titles later on. She also bagged other ATP singles titles until 1999.

It wasn’t until 2000 that Venus seized her 1st Grand Slam title at Wimbledon. She defeated then World No. 1 Martina Hingis during the quarterfinals, her sister Serena during the semifinals and during the finals, the defending champion Lindsay Davenport. She also met Hingis and Davenport in the U.S. Open and triumphed over them in that same year.

2001 was also another good year for Venus, for being able to defend her Wimbledon and U.S. Open Grand Slam titles for two years straight. It is noteworthy that Venus is the only the third female tennis player to win said titles at the same time in two consecutive years. Another fun twist is that she lost both titles to her sister Serena in 2002. In the same year, she ranked World No. 1 and became the first African-American to garner the top spot.

In 2003, Venus suffered injuries that kept her out of the competition for the last half of the year. Her performance in WTA events was also largely inconsistent in 2004. It was not until 2005 that she was able to seize another Grand Slam at Wimbledon, defeating the then defending top seed Maria Sharapova. Despite that, she still had inconsistencies in the events due to her recurring wrist injury.

She penetrated the top 10 again in 2006 and ranked World No. 9 while her sister Serena ranked World No. 7. On January 2008, Venus regained her No. 1 rank from the U.S. and became World No. 7.

Venus has already won 36 ATP titles, including 6 Grand Slams – 2 US Opens (2000, 2001) and 4 Wimbledon championships (2000, 2001, 2005, 2007). She has not yet seized any championship title from the neither Australian nor French Open. It is also noteworthy that in 3 of Venus’ Grand Slam finals, her opponent was Lindsay Davenport and one was with her sister Serena.