A Little Dash: Williams Sisters Gold

Posted by admin on August 14th, 2012

by Dash West | ARCHIVES

In the long standing list of accomplishments, Venus and Serena Williams have etched their names in tennis history for generations. The 2012 Summer Olympics in London provided tremendous drama as Serena Williams thunderous 100 mph serve thoroughly thumped Maria Sharapova in the women’s singles gold medal match at the 2012 Summer Olympics, winning 6-0, 6-1 in a match that lasted barely over an hour. And the score didn’t even really reflect how dominant Williams was.It wasn’t a huge surprise, though. Historically, Williams has generally had Sharapova’s number. They’ve met 11 times now and Sharapova has only won twice, both back in 2004. This is 31-year-old Serena’s first women’s singles gold medal. She previously won gold in women’s doubles with her sister Venus in 2000 and 2008. They will try to three-peat later in London. With this win, Serena becomes the first woman in history to have won all four Grand Slam titles (Australian Open, French Open, U.S. Open and Wimbledon) and Olympic gold in both singles and doubles. In her post-match interview, Serena says of the win, “I have a gold medal in singles! I never thought. Wow!”

A day after Serena Williams won her first Olympic singles gold medal, she and sister Venus Williams took the court against the Czech Republic’s Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka for the gold medal match in women’s doubles.It wasn’t quite the whopping Serena put on Maria Sharapova in the gold medal singles match, but the Williams sisters still defeated the Czech women handily, 6-4, 6-4. This marks the third gold medal for U.S. tennis at the 2012 Summer Games, as twins Bob and Mike Bryan won the men’s doubles gold Saturday (August 4, 2012). After the match, Serena says there’s just something extra special about winning gold with her sister.

“It’s so exciting to win the singles, but like I said from the beginning of the tournament, my goal was to get gold in doubles here. It’s something about standing next to Venus and holding that gold medal. We’re pretty stoked about it,” says Serena.

And Venus says they plan on being back in Rio four years from now.

“We’re planning on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. We’re going out with a bang in Rio,” says Venus. “But in four years, you never know. Stay tuned in four years.” This is the third doubles gold medal for the Williams sisters. They won in 2000, 2008 and now 2012. They did not play together in the 2004 Olympics because Serena was injured at the time. That was also the only games since tennis was reinstated as an Olympic sport in 1988 when the U.S. did not win the women’s doubles title.

THE WILLIAMS’ SISTERS GALLERY