I don’t want to think about what I’m leaving. I just think about who I am every single day behind closed doors and behind cameras. And that’s what I focus on. ―Serena Williams Who is Serena Williams? Serena Jameka Williams is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked singles world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times. She has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era, and the second-most of all time (behind Margaret Court's 24). Her Early Life Williams was born on September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan to Oracene Price and Richard Williams. She is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde, Lyndrea, and Isha Price, and full older sister Venus.She also has at least seven paternal half-siblings. When the children were young, the family moved to Compton, California, where she started playing tennis at age four. Her father home-schooled her and her sister, Venus. While he and subsequently her mother have been their official coaches, her other mentors have included Richard Williams, a Compton man who shared her father's name and subsequently founded The Venus and Serena Williams Tennis/Tutorial Academy. When Williams was nine, she and her family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach, Florida so she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci, who provided her with additional coaching. Macci did not always agree with Williams's father, but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls".Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was 10, as he wanted them to "go slowly" and focus on school work. Experiences of racism also influenced this decision, as he had heard white parents talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments. At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked number one among under-10 players in Florida."