Venus Williams

Venus Ebony Starr Williams (born June 17, 1980) is an American professional tennis player. She has been ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) on three separate occasions; as of November 2, 2009, she is ranked World No. 6. She is the reigning Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open doubles champion and has won 20 Grand Slam titles: seven in women's singles, eleven in women's doubles and two in mixed doubles. In addition, she has won three Olympic gold medals, one in women's singles and two in women's doubles.

Williams reached the US Open finals at the age of 17, becoming the first woman since 1978 to reach a US Open final on her début and was the first unseeded female US Open finalist since 1958. After her breakthrough, Williams breached the top ten on the WTA world rankings for the first time in 1998 when she won the Lipton Championships in Miami. Between 2000 and 2001, Williams won four of the six Grand Slam tournaments she entered. Her 35-match winning streak remains the longest of the millennium. She became the World No. 1 for the first time in February 2002.

Williams is the elder sister of the current World No.1 tennis player, Serena Williams. The sisters have played each other in 21 professional matches dating back to 1998, with Venus winning 10 matches played between them as of July 2009. Their meeting in the final of the 2001 US Open was the first Grand Slam final contested by two sisters in the open era. As of July 2009, they have met in eight Grand Slam finals, with Venus winning two of those. Between the 2002 French Open and the 2003 Australian Open, the sisters met in all four Grand Slam finals, the first time in the open era that the same two players had contested four consecutive Grand Slam finals.