Serena Williams has been doing something odd to her face. Many on social media are now saying that the tennis star is officially “light skinned.”
A few weeks ago, fans were shocked when Serena posted a photo of her new “lighter” complexion, during a trip to Paris with her husband, Alexis Ohanian.
While some suggested that Serena was bleaching her skin, others retorted that it was probably just bad makeup, or a camera flash, that lightened her face.
But yesterday Serena posted a video, showing the same light grey skin tone. And more fans are wondering what I going on with her.
Williams won 14 major women’s doubles titles, all with her sister Venus, and the pair was unbeaten in major doubles finals (the best unbeaten record in major finals in any discipline of the sport). The sisters achieved a non-calendar year Grand Slam between the 2009 Wimbledon Championships and the 2010 French Open, which granted the sisters the doubles world No. 1 ranking. Williams won four Olympic gold medals, three in women’s doubles—an all-time joint record in tennis, shared with her sister. The duo are the only women in the Open Era to win Olympic gold in both singles and doubles. Williams also won two major mixed doubles titles, both in 1998. She is the only singles player, male or female, to complete three Career Golden Slams – one in women’s singles and two in women’s doubles.
The ascent of the Williams sisters has been credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women’s professional tennis tour. Serena holds a combined 39 major titles: 23 in singles, 14 in women’s doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is joint-third on the all-time list and second in the Open Era for total major titles. She is the most recent woman to simultaneously hold all four major singles titles (2002–2003 and 2014–2015), and to win the Surface Slam (major titles on hard, clay and grass courts in the same calendar year), which she accomplished in 2015. She is also, with Venus, the most recent player to have simultaneously held all four major women’s doubles titles (2009–2010).
Williams was the world’s highest paid woman athlete in 2016, earning almost $29 million. She repeated this feat in 2017 when she was the only woman on Forbes’ list of the 100 highest-paid athletes, with $27 million in prize money and endorsements.
