As their careers grew these kids soon moved to Florida in a much nicer area. They started getting trained by legendary Tennis coach Rick Macci, who told their dad that they’re the next Michael Jordan, but in tennis the world obviously.

Companies started paying them the big bucks. Guess how much money 15-year-old Venus was offered by Reebok. I’ll share it with you towards the end. Their fame grew and unlike many of their peers, they were actually at celebrity status. A big reason for them reaching celebrity status wasn’t only based on their skills, it was also based on the racism they’d face. 

They’d been called gorillas, men, and the media would spread lies that Serena could only get that strong if she was taking steroids leading Serena to be tested for drugs twice as much as her peers. She responded to the haters by saying “I just work hard and I’m proud of this badass body.” However, the 2001 Indian Wells tournament was one that opened their eyes to another level of racism being thrown at them.

At the time Venus was suffering from a knee injury due to tendinitis, because of this, she decided to drop out of the tournament. In the tournament, she was supposed to go up against her sister Serena. Venus would play Serena would go against each other many times throughout her career, but that day was not the day and that racist crowd was not trying to hear it. They wanted Venus to play anyway.  So when Serena entered the stadium she was booed and called ni**er by a stadium of racist white people.  She wasn’t even the one with the injury but the crowd was convinced that they were cheating so that Serena could win.

It gets even worse. When Venus and their dad Richard Williams (King Richard) entered the stadium, Richard said “When Venus and I were walking down the stairs to our seats, people kept calling me ni**er. One guy said, ‘I wish it was ‘1975; we’d skin you alive.’ He also said that he was struggling to hold back tears. Richard dealt with racism all his life, he grew up in one of the most racist states in America, Louisiana. He would run from the KKK many times as a kid growing up, so for him and his family to face that, was traumatizing. You can see their pain here. I mean honestly, how would you have handled that situation? I don’t know if I’d be able to keep my cool like that.

Serena ended up beating her opponent Kim Clijsters and also winning the whole tournament. After that game, the sisters said they’d never play at Indian Wells again. Serena said “It was so hard,” “I’ll never forget driving back, and my sister Yetunde was there, and I remember just getting in the car and I was just bawling. I was at the gas station, there was no celebration, I was just crying and crying and crying.”

The sisters didn’t return for over a decade and in the next section, ill tell you what happened when they did return. Also if you wanted to read Serena’s book, watch the King Richards Film or grab some Williams merch then I listed all of that in the gifts link below. Check it out.