Frank Thomas

Notable Sports Figures
Serena Williams
financed by the sisters’ lucrative product endorsement
deals. In 1998 Serena signed a $12 million deal with
Puma, helping her to keep pace with Venus, who had an
equally impressive deal with Reebok.
Beats Mauresmo to Win First WTA Title
Williams won the first WTA title of her career early in
1999, overpowering Amelie Mauresmo of France 6-2, 3-
6, 7-6 in the Open Gaz de France tournament in Paris. In
besting Mauresmo, Serena became the first American
ever to win that tournament. Making the victory even
sweeter for the Williams family was an almost simultaneous
win by Venus in the IGA SuperThrift Tennis Classic
in Oklahoma City. Serena followed her Open Gaz
victory with a win over Steffi Graf at the Evert Cup tournament
in Indian Wells, California, the very next week,
grabbing her second WTA title in a row. During a threeweek
period ending with her defeat of Graf in California,
Serena won 11 consecutive matches. In an interview with
Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated, Williams made it
clear who she saw as her main competitor. “Whatever
my potential is, I want to reach it now,” she told Silver.
“And if I do, I see Venus as my biggest competition.”
The head-to-head sibling rivalry of which Serena
spoke was not long in coming. On March 28, 1999, Venus
beat her younger sister 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 at the Lipton Cham-
pionships in Key Biscayne, Florida. The Williams faceoff
marked the first time in more than a century that two
sisters met each other in a tennis tournament finals match.
The previous match between sisters had come in 1884
when 19-year-old Maud Watson beat older sister Lillian,
26, at the first women’s Wimbledon. Serena’s loss to
Venus at Key Biscayne was not really the first time she’d
fallen to her older sister but actually her third consecutive
loss to Venus, the others coming at the Australian Open
and Italian Open in 1998. Despite these defeats, Serena
was moving up impressively in the world tennis rankings,
finding herself at number 10 by mid-April 1999.
Wins First Singles Title
Williams
Later in 1999 the Williams sisters teamed up to win
the doubles title at the French Open. The sweetest victory
came for seventh-ranked Serena at the U.S. Open in 1999
when she became the lowest seed to win the women’s
title since 1968. In taking her first Grand Slam singles
title, Williams became only the second African-American
woman to do so. The win boosted Serena’s world ranking
to number four, the highest ranking of her career. Although
she’d started out way back in the rankings, Serena
now found herself running neck and neck with Venus. On
the heels of Serena’s singles victory at the U.S. Open, the
sisters teamed up again to win the doubles title at the U.S.
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