Serena Williams had grown up in a notoriously tough area of America. There was consistent drug use and gun violence, as well as extremely high unemployment rates. It could have been something to distract Serena and take her mind off her dream of becoming a tennis player but she had famously said in regard to her upbringing ‘If you can keep playing tennis when somebody is shooting a gun down the street', then that is concentration’. Which shows the level of commitment and concentration Serena had for tennis even early on in her life.
Her problems in life did not vanish once she made it to the top in tennis. She had to endure extreme levels of both racism and sexism, mainly due to her physique and dominant physicality as an elite athlete. However, Serena has never let these comments get the better of her during her time as one of the best tennis players on the planet, continuously blocking out the bigots and proving why she is amongst the best of the best on the planet in her field.
She fell pregnant whilst still playing tennis, which is one of the hardest challenges for female athletes to eventually face. She has had a near-death experience whilst giving birth to her baby, stating that during her birth, she had her C-section wound reopen, only for the doctors to find a blot clot in her abdomen, on the way to her lungs, thankfully, she overcame this.
Lastly, the struggles of trying to bounce back from physical fatigue that comes with aging in an elite-level sport, as well as the tole pregnancy would have on someone’s body at that level, is something that Serena has tried to constantly face.
She has won the second-most Grand Slams of all-time, being first in the list if you were to only count the Open era. She had been ranked world's number one on eight occasions over a 15 year period.
Her most miraculous tennis achievement was her achievement of managing to win a Grand Slam at the age of 36 all whilst 8 weeks pregnant at the time, an incredible achievement that very few would be able to manage.
She became a figurehead for female advocacy in sport, as well as black people and even less privileged people from dangerous or poorer upbringings, she was an inspiration for all those who have been talked down to in life, that they too can defy the odds and achieve stardom if they have the commitment and mentality.
