The career of Serena Williams in stats
Serena Williams has changed the face of tennis over her more than 25-year career. Join us for a look at her most impressive stats.
5. Oldest women’s Slam champion – 35 years and 4 months
Serena has set this record four times over by winning the 2015 French Open, Wimbledon 2015, Wimbledon 2016 and finally the 2017 Australian Open. In Melbourne that year she faced older sister Venus in a match where the finalists had the combined age of 71 years and 11 months, a little over 15 years on from their first meeting in a Slam final.
Moreover, Serena has twice set the record for oldest women’s Slam finalist, doing so by reaching the 2019 Wimbledon final and the 2019 US Open final, achieving the latter at the age of 37 years and 11 months old.
4. Olympic gold medals – 4
Serena shares this accolade with older sister Venus as the pair won Olympic doubles gold three times together in 2000, 2008 and 2012. Venus won the singles in 2000 while Serena did so in 2012, the only two times a woman has won Olympic singles and doubles in the same year during the Open Era.
In 2012, Serena completed dominated the competition, losing the fewest number of games ever en route to the gold. Over six matches the American surrendered just 17 games for an average of 1.4 games lost per set played, never losing more than three games in a set. In fact, her joint most dominant win came in the final over rival Maria Sharapova, defeating the Russian 6-0, 6-1 in barely an hour to complete the singles Career Golden Slam.
3. Time between first and last Slam final appearances – 20 years
While Serena has not yet retired, this statistic is incredible regardless of whether or not she extends it. Serena reached her first Slam final in 1999 at the age of 17, defeating fellow teenager Martina Hingis in the US open final.
Since then the American has reached 32 more Slam finals across 22 season on tour. At time of publication, her most recent final appearance came at the same tournament as her first in the 2019 US Open at the age of 37.
While Serena did not repeat her triumph from 1999 that day it stands as a testament to the astounding longevity of the now 40-year-old legend.
2. Most consecutive time spent at world number one – 186 weeks
While Serena does not lay claim to the WTA record of most weeks at world number one, coming in at third, she does share the record for the longest streak in the position.
Both she and Steffi Graf boast a consecutive record of 186 weeks in the top spot, more than three and a half years. Serena achieved the feat during her sixth stint at world number one between 18th February 2013 and 11th September 2016.
During that period she won seven Slam titles to bring her tally up to 22, including holding all four Slams at once after winning Wimbledon 2015. She was eventually toppled by Angelique Kerber after the German won the 2016 US Open.
1. Slam titles – 23
Well, Serena actually has 39 Slam titles but 14 of them are in doubles with sister Venus (bonus fact, the pair are 14-0 in Slam doubles finals) with two more in mixed doubles alongside Max Mirnyi.
She has had 14 seasons with at least one Slam title and seven with at least two. Her first came at the US Open in 1999 and most recent a little over 17 years later at the 2017 Australian Open. Serena has twice held all four Slams at once, doing so in 2002-3 and 2014-15. Finally, she boasts the Triple Career Grand Slam winning all four Slams at least three times.
She has won the Australian Open seven times, Roland Garros three times, Wimbledon seven times and the US Open six times.
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