Player of the century Serena Williams and the 100 facts you didn’t know about her!

So you think you know everything about Serena Williams, possibly the greatest female tennis player of all time? Stephen Towers tests your knowledge with 100 of the more obscure facts about the former world No 1

1. Her favourite author is Maya Angelou, an American poet, singer, writer and civil rights activist

2. She loves the music of George Michael. Her favourite Michael song is “Faith”

3. She is a fan of the American punk rock band Green Day

4. She appeared in Beyonce’s “Lemonade” video in 2016. “I think people were a little surprised that I could dance,” she said

5. Sophia Petrillo is her favourite character from the TV series “The Golden Girls”

6. Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kim Kardashian and Eva Longoria were among her wedding guests

7. After her marriage to Alexia Ohanian, she decided not to change her surname. “It would be complicated,” she said

8. She missed her daughter Olympia’s first steps during Wimbledon because she was out training

9. She played a small part as Agent Ross in the film “Hair Show” in 2004

10. She became friends with Meghan Markle – now the Duchess of Sussex – after they met at the 2010 Super Bowl

11. In 2008 on a trip to South Africa she met Nelson Mandela

12. She has two dogs, Laurelai (a Maltese) and Chip (a Yorkshire terrier). Jackie, a Jack Russell terrier, died three years ago

13. She once made herself ill after trying “a spoonful” of salmon and rice intended for Chip

14. She collects Wimbledon towels. “I have an antique collection,” she said. “I think my towels literally date back to a different millennium”

15. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she refuses to get involved in politics. “I don’t vote,” she says. “It goes back to my religion”

16. Her favourite time to play is mid-afternoon, either the second or third match after an 11am start. “Enough time to get me going,” she says

17. She considers Muhammad Ali the greatest athlete of all time because of “not only what he did in his field, but also what he did outside”

18. In 2015 she lost to Stan Wawrinka at table tennis. “I got destroyed,” she said

19. She likes to invest in tech businesses owned or run by women and African Americans

20. She is on the board of the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, which helps people from more diverse backgrounds to become future leaders

21. She owns a small stake in the Miami Dolphins American Football franchise

22. Of the 25 other players who have been world No 1 in the 43-year history of the official world rankings, Martina Navratilova, Chris Evert, Tracy Austin and Evonne Goolagong are the only ones she has not beaten. They all retired before her career began

23. She shares the record of the most consecutive weeks (186) as world No 1 with Steffi Graf

24. She has been world No 1 for 319 weeks, a total bettered only by Graf (377) and Martina Navratilova (332)

25. She became the oldest women’s world No 1 in 2013

26. She is one of six players who have been world No 1 in singles and doubles at the same time. The other are Martina Navratilova, Martina Hingis, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Linday Davenport and Kim Clijsters

27. As world No 181 she was the lowest ranked player to reach the Wimbledon women’s singles final this summer

28. As No 25 seed this year she was the lowest to reach the Wimbledon final in the Open era

29. She sometimes prepares for Wimbledon by practising on the grass courts at Jack Nicklaus’ home in Florida

30. She was world No 81 when she won the 2007 Australian Open. “The general consensus was that I was a big fat cow,” she wrote in her autobiography

31. Her career total prize money of $88.2m is more than double that of Venus, the second player on the list

32. She holds the women’s record for the most prize money won in a single season ($12,4m in 2013)

33. She has won more than $1m in a year in prize money 18 times

34. She finished second on the WTA earnings list in 2017 despite playing only two tournaments

35. She earned only $62,000 in prize money between June 2017 and June 2018 but $18.1m in endorsements according to the annual Forbes list

36. She was born in Saginaw, Michigan, near where her mother came from. The family moved to Compton, California, a few months later

37. Her father, Richard, had his own security firm and her mother, Oracene, was a nurse

38. Her middle name is Jameka. Richard used to call her Meeka

39. She grew up with four sisters – Yetunde, Isha, Lyndrea and Venus

40. Her oldest sister, Yetunde, was killed in a shooting incident in Compton in 2003

41. She is one year, three months and nine days younger than Venus

42. When she was young she spent more time hitting with her mother than with her father

43. Richard, comparing his daughters, once called Serena “the meaner of the two”. Serena’s response? “I don’t think I am mean at all. I am a very nice person – sometimes”

44. As a child she remembers hearing gunshots from drive-by shootings during her practice sessions on public courts in Compton

45. She met Billie Jean King for the first time aged seven when her father took her to a coaching clinic organised by World Team Tennis

46. She was eight when she played her first tournament, a 10-and-under event near their home in Compton. She was beaten 6-2, 6-2 by Venus in the final

47. Her family moved from California to Haines City, Florida when she was nine

48. As a child she did ballet, gymnastics and karate

49. She was educated at Driftwood Academy, a private school in Lake Park, Florida

50. Richard and Oracene told their children they were divorcing in 1999

51. Richard decided on a professional tennis career for his daughters after learning on TV that the Romanian player Virginia Ruzici had just earned $40,000 in a week

52. Monica Seles and Zina Garrison were Serena’s two tennis role models growing up

53. She first played on a clay court when her family moved to Florida

54. She made her professional debut in Quebec in 1995 at the age of 14. She lost 6-1, 6-1 to Anne Miller

55. She lost her first main-draw match, against Kimberly Po-Messerli, in Moscow in 1997 when she was 16

56. Her first victory as a professional came at Indian Wells in 1997 alongside Venus in the doubles

57. Her first win against a top 10 opponent was when she beat Mary Pierce (world No 7) in Chicago in 1997

58. Her first title came in doubles with Venus at Oklahoma City in 1998

59. She won her first Grand Slam match, at the 1998 Australian Open, against Irina Spirlea

60. At her first Australian Open in 1998 she played mixed doubles with Lleyton Hewitt

61. At her first US Open in 1998 she played mixed doubles with Max Mirnyi. Twenty years later, both are still playing

62. Early in her career she studied design and fashion at the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale

63. The first time she competed against Venus as a professional was at the 1998 Australian Open. Venus won 7-6, 6-1

64. Karsten Braasch, a journeyman professional, played practice sets against Serena and Venus in Australia in 1998. He beat Serena 6-1 and Venus 6-2

65. Venus won her first three career meetings with Serena but only nine of the next 27

66. Venus has beaten Serena more times (12) than any other player

67. Serena and Venus have played in 14 Grand Slam doubles finals and won them all. No women’s pair have won as many

68. Of the 23 doubles titles Serena has won, only one was without Venus. She won at Leipzig in 2002 with Alexandra Stevenson

69. She has won four Olympic gold medals – three with Venus in doubles and one in singles in 2012

70. Steffi Graf played Serena twice before retiring in 1999. Graf won in Sydney and Serena won at Indian Wells

71. After winning her first US Open in 1999 Serena took a phone call from Bill Clinton, the US President

72. In beating Martina Hingis 6-3, 7-6(4) in the 1999 US Open final she made 57 unforced errors

73. At the Miami Open in 2002 she beat the world’s top three players, Martina Hingis, Venus Williams and Jennifer Capriati. Venus and Steffi Graf are the only other players who have beaten the top three at the same tournament

74. At the 2002 US Open she wore a leather catsuit

75. Only three players who have played her more than once have a winning head-to-head record against her: Arantxa Sanchez Vicario (4-3), Sybille Bammer (2-0) and Naomi Osaka (2-0)

76. Over the course of her career she has won one out of every three tournaments she has played

77. She has done the “Serena Slam” (holding all four Grand Slam titles at the same time) twice, in 2002-2003 and 2014-2015

78. The only time when she pulled out in the middle of a Grand Slam tournament was at this year’s French Open, where she suffered a pectoral muscle injury

79. She is the only woman to have won a Grand Slam singles title in three different decades

80. The 18-year span between her first and most recent Grand Slam titles (the 1999 US Open and the 2017 Australian Open) is the longest in women’s tennis history. The previous record of 12 years was shared by Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf

81. Her 11-year gap between winning French Open titles in 2002 and 2013 is the longest between titles for any woman at a Grand Slam event

82. She lost the first set in four of her seven matches en route to the French Open title in 2015

83. After Patrick Mouratoglou started coaching her in 2012 she won eight of the next 13 Grand Slam tournaments

84. She has played in 69 Grand Slam tournaments. Since her debut in 1998 she has missed 15

85. She has reached at least one Grand Slam final every year since 2006

86. She has won more matches (95) at the US Open than at any of the other four Grand Slam events

87. She has reached the quarter-finals or better of her last 10 US Opens

88. In 2015 she went within two wins of a pure calendar-year Grand Slam before losing to Roberta Vinci in the semi-finals of the US Open

89. She has no plans to go into coaching but says that if she would like to work with anyone it would be the young Russian Daria Kasatkina

90. Her fastest recorded serve was timed at 128.6mph at the 2013 Australian Open

91. She has a two-bedroom apartment in Paris close to the Eiffel Tower

92. She was fined $82,500 for her profanity-laced tirade against a line judge during her 2009 US Open semi-final against Kim Clijsters

93. She had two foot operations in 2010 after treading on glass in a Munich restaurant. Her foot was in a cast for 20 weeks

94. As a result of the Munich accident she did not play a tournament for 12 months

95. On a trip to Senegal at the end of 2006 she agreed at a meeting with President Abdoulaye Wade to help him build a school that children would be able to attend for free

96. She was on a flight from New York to Florida at the time of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre. Her flight was rerouted to Washington

97. During her first match at the 2015 Hopman Cup in Perth she asked for a coffee during a changeover. “I needed some espresso and I needed to wake up,” she said. “It’s the jet lag”

98. Her hitting partner, 27-year-old Jarmere Jenkins, reached a career-high position of No 190 in the world rankings

99. She was Venus Williams’ first hitting partner when her sister started playing tournaments

100. She says that all female players “love Andy Murray” because of his support for women’s issues

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