Serena Williams
USA
Tennis
Overall Ranks
#17 among American Olympians
#5 among Female American Olympians
#1 among Tennis Players
Olympic Results
2000
Doubles - Gold
2008
Doubles - Gold
2012
Doubles - Gold
Singles - Gold
Total
Events - 7
Gold - 4
Serena Jamika Williams was born on September 26, 1981 in Saginaw, Michigan, and began playing tennis when she was 4 years old. She played in her first professional tournament when she had just turned 16, and upset two of the top 10 players in the world, Mary Pierce and Monica Seles, reaching the top 100 before the end of the year.
In 1999, she won the US Open singles and doubles titles, becoming just the 5th woman in history to do that, and she was still just 17 years old. The next year, she went to Sydney to compete in her first Olympics, but only in the doubles with her sister Venus, as only the top 3 players from each country could qualify for singles.
In the Olympic doubles tournament, the Williams sisters completely dominated, losing only one set in the entire tournament. In the gold medal match, they beat Boogert and Oremans of the Netherlands 6-1, 6-1 to cruise to the gold medal. Venus became the first woman in 76 years to win gold in both tennis events, and Serena had her first gold medal.
Between 2002 and 2003, she won all 4 Grand Slam finals in a row, defeating her sister Venus in the final in each, becoming just the 5th woman ever to hold all 4 titles at once. Late in 2003, she injured her knee, which required surgery, and ended up not qualifying for the 2004 Olympics as a result.
She battles through several other injuries in the ensuing years, but was finally healthy in time for the 2008 Olympics. She was seeded 4th in the singles event, and made it to the quarterfinals with only one set lost, but she lost to Yelena Dementyeva, the #5 seed, in that round, ending her first Olympic singles run a little early.
In the doubles, she and Venus were the #2 seeds, and they lost their very first set, before turning it around and winning the match, then winning the next 2 matches in straight sets. In the semifinal, they lost one set to the Ukrainians, but won the final set 6-1 to advance to the final, which they won 6-2, 6-0 to win their second gold medal as a pair.
By the time 2012 came around, she had reestablished herself as one of the best women's tennis players in the world, and she showed it at the Olympics. She went through the entire singles tournament without losing a set, and only giving up 17 total games in 6 matches, including a 6-1, 6-2 win over world #1 Vika Azarenka in the semifinal, and a 6-0, 6-1 demolition of Maria Sharapova in the gold medal match. It was the most dominant performance in the history of Olympic tennis.
In the doubles tournament, the Williams sisters were almost as dominant, again winning every single match without losing a set, and not a single set went to a tiebreaker, though some of them were a little closer than Serena's singles run, like their 6-4, 6-4 win in the gold medal match. Either way, it was a great performance, and the third gold medal won by the pair at the Olympics.
Between 2014 and 2015, Serena again won all 4 Grand Slam titles in a row making her the first woman ever to achieve the feat twice. She competed once more in the Olympics, in Rio in 2016, but was surprisingly upset in the third round of the singles event, and then even more shockingly knocked out in the first round of the doubles.
She has not competed in the Olympics since, and took nearly 4 years off from tennis completely before making a return earlier this year. It's unlikely that she will qualify to compete in the Olympics again, but with the 4 gold medals she has already won, and the dominant way that she earned each of them, she has shown that she is one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
