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Serena Williams’s Unimpeachable Serve

Serena Williams described her desire to be “perfect.” “I know perfect doesn’t exist,” she wrote in Vogue earlier this month, announcing her plans to leave professional tennis. “But whatever my perfect was, I never wanted to stop until I got it right.” Williams’s serve — the most elementally sound component of her game — might […]

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Don’t Count Out Serena Yet

First, we recap the results of the Australian Open. Naomi Osaka earned her fourth Grand Slam after defeating Serena Williams in the semifinals and Jen Brady in the finals. This result certainly doesn’t mean Serena is done with tennis — no matter how much her cutting short a post-match press conference might suggest otherwise. She […]

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How Serena Williams Could Finally Break The Grand Slam Record

Playing the Australian Open at age 39, Serena Williams is trying again to lock down one of the last puzzle pieces of her magnificent career. Widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players ever, Williams’s only remaining snag is the Grand Slam record of a troublesome Margaret Court, who played in an era with […]

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Why Are Great Athletes More Likely To Be Younger Siblings?

Venus Williams was the first of the Williams sisters to make a splash in professional tennis. But Richard Williams, their father, was always convinced that Serena — 15 months younger than Venus, and the youngest of Oracene Price’s five daughters — would go on to have the better career. Richard Williams was right. While Venus […]

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Have Serena Williams And Roger Federer Won Their Last Grand Slams?

For the first time since 1945, there will be no Wimbledon this year. And there’s no guarantee that the coronavirus pandemic won’t yet cancel the U.S. Open, scheduled to start in late August, and the French Open, which was postponed from May to September. If the rest of the 2020 tennis season is abandoned altogether, […]

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