The William sisters learned to play tennis even before they could make it to school. Her father Richard dreamt of a better life for his five daughters and knew tennis was the route to happiness and success. Together Serena and her sister Venus have not just made Grand Slam history, they have also paved the way for African Americans on the WTA.

Q: How did this really work because this is something that everybody sort of things about playing with your sister, competing with your sister? How do you differentiate that this is Serena Williams the tennis star who is going out there and is battling a fierce competitor? How do you disintegrate the two roles between sister and tennis player?

A: For me, it is really important to be a sister first and it’s really important to be just a good person. When we’re on the court, obviously, that’s when the Serena Williams tennis player comes out. But other than that, I’m just Serena all the time, I’m not anything else.

Q: But there must have been trying times, especially when you started off. Both of you were competing against each other professionally. How did you sort it out, how did you balance it out?

A: I was really excited to being competing against her because she had done so well, so fast. So I just wanted to compete and wanted to be in that situation as well. So whenever I had a match against her, it was great. I was really excited.

Q: Dethroning each other, moving each other out of the rankings. At least in that instance does it bother you at all?

A: No, because I want the best for my sister and she definitely wants the best for me. It’s really competitive, like when she became number one, I wanted to be number one and when I won Grand Slam, she wanted to win Grand Slams. So I think that is the way we help each other out and we help our careers.

Q: But is it lonely being on the tour and does it help to have Venus there because, you are constantly competing with one another and you are constantly on the move, you are in different countries practically every couple of days, on a plane, off a plane. Do you not have the capacity to have a regular life in that sense?

A: We are not constantly competing with each other.

Q: Not with each other, but just being on the tour. Does it leave out the regular stuff relationship, so on so forth?

A: We are not constantly competing with each other, and we really have a great time. The tour can get lonely, but I’ve been fortunate enough to have my family that travels with me. I travel with my dogs, and believe it or not, they are really great company. I’m always with my computer and with my HP they have like a little web chat thing, so, I always chat with my friends, my mom, my sisters and with my cousins. So I always have a source to go back home and I’m not as lonely.

Plus, I figured I have a great job, I get to travel to different countries that I have never been to and see lots of different things. Like right now for instance, I’m in India and I’m excited that I get to have a chance to see the Taj Mahal and some of the places that I have never been before.

Q: Apart from Venus who’s has been your fiercest competitor, who do you really enjoy battling against?

A: I enjoyed playing with my heroes like Steffi Graf, which I thought was just really cool. Monica Seles is someone that I have enjoyed watching and she was my idol and then to have to play her, it was really amazing.  

Q: Was it intimidating for you, at least in the beginning when you started off, that you will be competing with people that you have looked up to and grown up watching?

A: It was cool more than anything. It was like wow, this is a great opportunity and I wanted to win. I had watched them and I felt like I could win and I wanted to win.

Q: What’s been the lesson that you have learnt watching Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Martina Navratilova, people who we have all grown up watching tennis. But for you, when you play with them and spend time with them, what’s been the one thing that you’ve imbibed as part of your personality from any of them?

A: I think those great champs, they never give up. Even if you are up matchpoint, they never gave up. I thought that if I wanted to be a great champion, then always embody them.

Q: In the fresh crop of players that you see on the pro circuit at this point in time, do you see a lot of stars who have that spark in them?

A: Everyone nowadays is fighting, everyone I play. I think the level of tennis has definitely gone up.

Q: Is it a very different place when you turned pro when you were about 14. Is it a very different place now the circuit, is it getting a lot more commercial you think or is it still about the sport?

A: It’s definitely about the sport.

Q: So you don’t think the fact that you have got so much money coming in, you have advertisers and all of that, that hasn’t taken away from the sport?

A: Tennis is definitely about the sport and players are living for the Grand Slams.

Q: So where do you actually see yourself headed now because you are back, you are going to be competing now through the year? Is there a specific target or a specific goal that you have set for yourself in 2008?

A: In 2008 my goal is just to be injury free and just enjoy myself.

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