Norbury Sports Newsletter
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February 2021 Number 296 Sports spectacular Newsletter PE-Daily challenge 23! Anvi from 3M showing How many times can you throw and catch whilst in a ball us her amazing work! balance? (feet off the floor) Adam from 1H working on his change of pace! Sisters Alisha (6T( and Aarna (RB) have been working on their flexibility together! Super job ladies, these are great japana’s! Venus Ebony Starr Williams by Saranya 4D Venus Ebony Starr Williams, popularly known as Venus Williams, is an American professional tennis player. She is a former world No.1 player in both singles and doubles. Williams is generally regarded as one of the all- time greatest of women's tennis along with her younger sister Serena Williams. Venus has been ranked world No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association for a total of 19 weeks (11 in singles and 8 in doubles). She first reached the No. 1 ranking in singles on February 25, 2002, becoming the first African American woman to do so in the Open Era, and the second all time since Althea Gibson. Early life When she was 10 years old, she and her family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida in order for her and her sister to attend Rick Macci’s tennis academy. When she was 11, she was stopped by her father from joining the national junior tennis tournaments so that she could focus on her studies. In 1995, Venus Williams stopped attending Mac- ci’s academy and her father coached her instead. On October 31, 1994, she became a professional tennis player at 14. Achievements/Competitions From the 2000 Wimbledon Championships to the 2001 US Open, Williams won four of the six Grand Slam sin- gles tournaments in that span. William’s seven Grand Slam singles titles are tied for 12th on the all-time list, and 8th on the Open Era list, more than any other active female player except her sister. She became the world No. 1 in doubles for the first time on June 7, 2010 alongside Serena, after the pair won their fourth consecutive Grand Slam doubles crown (the 4 major tennis matches). She has reached 16 Grand Slam finals, most recently at Wim- bledon in 2017. Her five Wimbledon singles titles tie her with two other women for eighth place on the all-time list, but give her sole possession of No. 4 on the Open Era List, trailing only the nine titles of Martina Navratilo- va and the seven of Serena Williams and Steffi Graf. At the 2021 Australian Open, Williams became the oldest women to participate in a Grand slam. In 2002, Serena defeated Venus in the finals of the French Open, the U.S. Open, and Wimbledon, but in 2005 Ve- nus captured the Wimbledon championship. She struggled with injuries and competed in only a few tournaments the following year but went on to win her fourth Wimbledon in 2007. In 2008 Venus defeated Serena for a fifth career Wimbledon title, placing her fifth all-time in women’s Wimbledon singles championships. That same year the Williams sisters won their second Olympic gold medal in tennis doubles, this time in Beijing. The following year they met again at the finals of Wimbledon, though this time Serena prevailed. In the ensuing years, Venus’s play declined, though in 2016 she won her 49th tournament. With her run to the 2017 Wimbledon singles final, she broke the record for longest time between first and most recent grand slam singles finals appearances. She has also won 14 Grand Slam Women's doubles titles, all with Serena Williams; the pair is unbeaten in Grand Slam doubles finals. Williams also has two Mixed Doubles titles. Her combined total of 23 Grand Slam titles across all disciplines is tied with Steffi Graf for the fourth-most by a women's player in the Open Era behind Martina Navratilova, Serena, and Martina Hingis. Later that year Venus reached the finals at Wimbledon but was defeated. Williams has won four Olympic gold medals, one in singles and three in women's doubles with her sister, along with a silver medal in mixed doubles, tying her with Kathleen McKane Godfree for the most Olympic medals won by a male or female tennis player in history. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Williams became only the sec- ond player to win Olympic gold medals in both singles and doubles at one Olympic Games, after Helen Wills Moody at the 1924 Summer Olympics (she was followed by her sister in 2012). After winning silver in mixed doubles with Rajeev Ram at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Williams became the first tennis player to win a medal at four separate Olympic games, as well as the first player in the Open Era to win an Olympic medal in all three events (singles, doubles, mixed). She and Serena are also the only tennis players in history with four Olym- pic gold medals, as well as the only ones to win Olympic gold in the same event on three separate occasions. Struggles and injuries She was not able to play during the first five months of 2002 due to tendinitis in both wrists but won 35 consecutive singles matches and six tournaments in the same year. In 2004, she went through tough losses and suffered injuries, and she was not able to qualify for the year -end WTA Tour Championships and landed in the 9th rank. Venus Williams suffered a brutal ankle injury during her Australian Open sec- ond-round match in 2021. The 40-year-old took back-to-back medical timeouts to address the issue. Somewhat miraculously, she returned to the court and finished out the match through immense pain. .