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This Day In Sports…June 6, 2015, 10 years ago today:
Serena Williams wins her 20th career Grand Slam championship with a 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 win over Lucie Safarova in the women’s final at The French Open. It was Williams’ third French Open title to go along with six U.S. Opens, six Australian Opens and five Wimbledons. She also became the first woman to win consecutive U.S., Australian and French Open crowns since Monica Seles in 1991-92. Only two women in the century-plus history of Grand Slam tennis had won more championships at that point: Margaret Smith Court with 24 in the pre-Open era, and Steffi Graf with 22.
Serena eventually passed Graf’s Open Era record and finished her career with 23. Not only that, Williams went on to become the only player to have achieved the “Golden Slam”—winning the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S. Open and earning an Olympic gold medal—in both singles and doubles. Williams also holds the women’s record for victories in Grand Slam matches at 365, not to mention 73 singles titles.
Serena’s 23rd and final Grand Slam win at the 2017 Australian Open was unforgettable. She beat her sister Venus for the title—and almost no one beyond the famous siblings knew that Serena pulled that off while pregnant. “I don’t know how I did that, honestly,” Williams said earlier this week, selecting the moment as the most important of her tennis career.
Williams announced her retirement in August of 2022 in a most interesting way—via an essay in Vogue magazine. Her final U.S. Open appearance the following month would give her a chance to tie Court’s record for Grand Slam titles. It didn’t happen, as Serena ended her pro tennis career with a Round 3 loss to Aija Tomljanovic. It was a classic, though, going three sets and lasting more than three hours. With that, Williams’ career earnings topped off at more than $94 million, twice as much as any other female athlete at the time.
“The way I see it, I should have had 30-plus Grand Slams,” Williams said in her Vogue essay, detailing the hurdles she played through after giving birth in 2017. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. I didn’t show up the way I should have or could have. But I showed up 23 times, and that’s fine. Actually it’s extraordinary.”
(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)
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