.Following her performance in Sydney, Williams – and her sister Serena – turned the women’s tennis world into their own family tennis outing as the two sisters would go on to win seven of the next 11 Grand Slam women’s singles titles.

 Venus won her third and fourth career Grand Slam singles titles at Wimbledon and the US Open in 2001. Her 2001 US Open singles final round victory came at the expense of Serena in the first Grand Slam final played between siblings since Wimbledon in 1884 when Maud Watson defeated sister Lillian Watson. Venus reached subsequent Grand Slam singles final at the 2002 French Open, Wimbledon, US Open, the 2003 Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2003 – only to lose to sister Serena in the final.

IBSON’S LEGACIES – As the tennis world nears the first anniversary of the death of Althea Gibson, it is interesting to note that the 2004 U.S. Olympic Women’s Tennis Team consists of four “legacies” of Gibson in U.S. players Venus Williams and Chanda Rubin, as well as U.S. Coach Zina Garrison, U.S. Assistant Coach Lori McNeil. Gibson, who died on September 28, 2003, became the “Jackie Robinson of tennis“ in 1950 becoming the first black player to compete in the U.S. Championships, and also became the first black champion at a Grand Slam event with wins at the French Championships in 1956, the U.S. Championships and Wimbledon in 1957 and 1958. Tennis was not an Olympic sport when Gibson competed, however, she did compete for the U.S. at the Pan American Games in 1959.

Coaching the U.S. team is Zina Garrison, who became the first black player to win Olympic gold when she and Pam Shriver won the women’s doubles title at the Seoul Games in 1988. Garrison, a friend of Gibson’s until her death, reached the women’s singles final at Wimbledon in 1990, becoming the first black woman to do so since Gibson in 1958. Garrison is the first black woman to coach the U.S. Olympic tennis team and the U.S. Fed Cup team.

Joining Garrison in Athens is Lori McNeil, who like Gibson, took the torch from Gibson in the 1980s and 1990s to become one of the great black tennis players in the world. McNeil, the assistant women’s tennis coach in Athens, was a Wimbledon semifinalist in 1994 and a U.S. Open semifinalist in 1987. She is also a coach in the USTA’s High Peformance Program.

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