Venus Williams captured the tennis world's attention at age seventeen with a stunning tournament debut at the 1997 U.S. Open, one of the most prestigious events in the sport. Ranked sixty-sixth in the world at the start of the tournament, Williams rose to face the world's number-one player, Martina Hingis, in the final match, and though she lost to Hingis in the end, her performance clearly established her as a player to watch. Off court as well, she proved herself a capable successor to Althea Gibson and Arthur Ashe as one of the few African Americans in professional tennis, handling with unapologetic aplomb the nagging racial issues raised by her presence in a stereotypically "white" sport.

Venus Ebone Starr Williams was born in Lynwood, California, on June 17, 1980. She grew up in predominantly black Compton, just across the city line from the South Central section of Los Angeles. At...