[Abraham]

Yetunde:

“I was sharing a room with Lyn [her sister] in Toronto when I found out,” Williams says. “We just couldn’t take it in. I had been talking to Tunde on the phone earlier that day and she had been real excited about what was going on in her life, and mine. I just couldn’t make sense of it. It was like something out of a dream.

“I took a little time off from tennis, but then I threw myself back into it. I think that happens when people face tragedy: either they plunge themselves into their jobs to take their minds off what has happened, or they grieve properly. I didn’t grieve properly.”

Two years later, Williams ground to a halt, the emotional trauma finally catching up with her. “I needed to take time out from tennis because I had an injury to my leg and had all sorts of emotional and spiritual wounds,” she says. “I started to see a therapist because I was in a bad place and needed to talk things through. After a while, I started getting my energy back again. God helped with that.”
Her first love:

So and So? That’s Williams’s name for her first boyfriend — she refuses to say his real name because a friend told her that it is easier to get through a bad break-up if you don’t speak your ex’s name.

An American footballer, So and So finished their budding relationship in 2001 when he simply stopped taking her calls. They had just spent two weeks in each other’s company after 9/11 and Williams had fallen deeply in love, but he pulled the plug without even bothering to explain why.

“I suffered a lot when that happened,” she says. “I just couldn’t understand why he was so cruel. I think my run of grand-slam titles [she won four in a row between 2002 and 2003] was partly about showing him that I didn’t need him to get on with my life.” Are you over him now? “Oh, God yeah. But I think it is because of what happened with him that I still have trust issues with guys.” (note...from the timetable she gives, it's definitely LaVar Arrington)

Full article (this is a really nice interview, and there is also a video of Serena playing table tennis with the writer):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle6891173.ece

[onlyfun_biziness]

Yetunde:




Her first love:



(note...from the timetable she gives, it's definitely LaVar Arrington)

Full article (this is a really nice interview, and there is also a video of Serena playing table tennis with the writer):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle6891173.ece

That's exactly who popped into my mind. Nice article. Thanks for the link Moose.

TA

P.S. I'm curious about this bit of reporting: "Williams was brought up in the Compton area of Los Angeles, one of the most violent neighbourhoods in the United States, along with two sisters from her mother’s previous relationship and two full sisters, including Venus. She shared a single bedroom with her four siblings, but with only two bunks in the room she had no bed of her own."

This seems to indicate that Lyn is also Richard's child, but always thought that she wasn't. Does anyone know?

[infelconi]

That's exactly who popped into my mind. Nice article. Thanks for the link Moose.

TA

P.S. I'm curious about this bit of reporting: "Williams was brought up in the Compton area of Los Angeles, one of the most violent neighbourhoods in the United States, along with two sisters from her mother’s previous relationship and two full sisters, including Venus. She shared a single bedroom with her four siblings, but with only two bunks in the room she had no bed of her own."

This seems to indicate that Lyn is also Richard's child, but always thought that she wasn't. Does anyone know?

I always thought Venus was the only one who was her full sister. I think the journalist is probably mistaken or something.