Before 23 Grand Slam singles titles, before the world No. 1 ranking she held for 319 weeks, Serena Williams was a four-year-old on cracked public courts in Compton, California, hitting crates of old, dead tennis balls after school while her dad worked night shifts to be there. If you think your kid’s setup isn’t good enough, keep reading.
1. Childhood: Compton public courts and a father with a plan
Serena was born September 26, 1981, in Saginaw, Michigan, the youngest of five daughters of Richard Williams and Oracene Price. When the girls were little, Richard moved the family to Compton, California. He’d watched Romanian player Virginia Ruzici win the 1978 French Open and its $40,000 prize — more than he’d made all year — and decided his daughters would become tennis players. He wrote a 78-page plan for their careers before Serena could walk.
Richard was not a tennis player. He taught himself the game from books and videos. Oracene — a nurse and former schoolteacher — spent more court time with the girls in their early years than Richard did, by Serena’s own account. Serena picked up her first racket around age three or four and played her first tournament at four and a half. Her older sister Venus, 15 months her senior, was her built-in hitting partner and rival from day one.
When Serena was nine, the family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida, so she and Venus could train at Rick Macci’s academy. Macci — who had already coached Jennifer Capriati and would later coach Andy Roddick and Maria Sharapova — took them on from 1991 to 1995.
2. What set her apart early
Rick Macci has spent years telling stories about young Serena, and they all point at the same thing: refusal. He said the best quality of Serena as a kid was that “she refused to lose. Period. No matter who she played… she fought every point and never checked out.” In one widely shared story, young Serena would call balls out before they even bounced against hard hitters, insisting to her coach: if she knew it was out, why wait for the ground?
The results matched the attitude. By age 10, Serena had gone 46-3 on the junior tour and was ranked No. 1 among under-10 players in Florida. Macci also said she practiced her serve more than any student he ever taught — the same serve that would become one of the most feared weapons in tennis history.
3. How she trained as a junior
In Compton, the setup was as unglamorous as it gets: rundown, cracked public courts, sometimes with broken glass on them. Richard famously made the girls practice with old, worn-out balls — Macci later recalled that he’d use bad balls on purpose so they’d have to run faster and bend lower. Training ran about two hours a day, before and after school.
In Florida, she trained at Macci’s academy from ages 9 to 14 — hard courts in the Florida heat. But here’s the part most tennis parents miss: when Serena was 10, Richard pulled both girls out of national junior tournaments entirely. He wanted them to “go slowly,” stay in school, and not burn out before turning pro. Experiences of racism from other parents at junior events factored into the decision too. Venus went three full years without playing a single tournament before turning pro. Neither sister won a junior Grand Slam or an Orange Bowl — the trophies many of us assume are required.
She turned pro in September 1995 at age 14. Her first major title came at the 1999 US Open, when she was 17.
4. The through-line to pro success
Two things from her childhood became her professional identity: the serve and the refusal to lose. The serve she drilled harder than any of Macci’s other students became the foundation of her game — from 2008 to 2022 she piled up over 4,000 aces and won more first-serve points than any woman on tour. The mental edge Macci saw in a nine-year-old is the same one that carried her through a career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles — the only player, man or woman, to complete the set of all four majors plus Olympic gold across both disciplines. Her four-year gap between turning pro and winning her first Slam also shows something important: patience. The plan was never “win now.”
5. What tennis parents can take from this
- You don’t need a fancy setup to start. Serena learned the game on cracked public courts with a dad who’d learned from books. What mattered was consistency: two hours a day, day after day. If you’re stressing about which club to join, remember that the GOAT started on broken glass.
- Skipping junior tournaments can be a strategy, not a sacrifice. Richard pulled a No. 1-ranked ten-year-old off the junior circuit to protect her from burnout — and it worked. If your kid is playing too much, consider that the Williams sisters never won a single junior Grand Slam.
- Pick one shot and own it. Serena’s serve was built through deliberate repetition, not talent alone. Help your kid identify one weapon and drill it relentlessly. Matches are won on practiced strengths, not fixed weaknesses.
Leave a comment