Venus and Serena Williams are some of the best tennis players in history. They have repeatedly topped the WTA rankings, can boast many Olympic medals, and their tournament wins are hard to count. Learn interesting facts about the lives of the famous Williams sisters.
Venus Ebony Starr, a year older, was born on June 17, 1980 in Lynwood (USA), while her younger sister, Serena Jameka, was born on September 26, 1981 in Saginaw (USA). Both started playing tennis at the same time, Venus at the age of 5, Serena – 4. Their parents dreamed of their daughters’ sports careers in tennis. So that the girls could train under the best coaches, the Williamses moved more than once.
The first coach of the famous tennis players was their father – Richard Williams, who instilled in them a love for the sport. Then, after the whole family moved to Florida, the girls joined the tennis academy and began to train under the guidance of Rick Matzia, who saw great potential in them. He is said to have said of the girls that they would be women’s versions of Michael Jordan – as you can see, he was not mistaken. Serena and Venus are considered to be among the best tennis players in the history of the sport.
Both Venus and Serena are vegan. Serena was the first to switch to a vegan diet, later recommending it to Venus. It is Venus who talks a lot in the media about the benefits of this diet, extolling how it has positively affected her health, fitness and skin. Venus is also said to have switched to a vegan diet in order to minimize inflammation caused by Sjogren’s syndrome, a disease she was diagnosed with in 2011.
Probably not one person is interested in how much the world’s top tennis players have accumulated in their accounts. Well, Serena, earning a total of $94,518,971 as prize money from WTA tournaments, has become the highest-earning tennis player in history. If her prizes were distributed for each year of her career, it would mean that she earned more than $8 million annually.
What’s more, Serena is the fourth highest-earning tennis player in the world among both men and women. She is surpassed only by Ion Tiriac, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. Venus, on the other hand, has amassed $42,173,992 in U.S. dollars during her career, making her the second highest-earning tennis player in the world.
Venus Williams trained in clothing design, receiving her diploma in 2007. In 2011, she began studying business, from which she received a bachelor’s degree in 2015. She owns her own interior design company, Starr Interiors. She also created her own collection of clothing, signed EleVen, which she has personally presented on the courts more than once.
Serena studied fashion design at the same school as Venus, The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in Florida. She opened her own fashion label, S by Serena, and created an investment company, taking on numerous smaller investments. She designed the “Aneres” clothing collection for Nike and is a UNICEF goodwill ambassador.
main photo: unsplash.com/John Fornander
