Serena Williams has done it all in tennis, but there’s so much more to come from her.
The 19-year-old was recently named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” for 2012, and she’s no stranger to accolades. And why not?
Serena was recently named a CNN Hero in October, named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world, and she’s one of the top-ranked women in the United States by the Women’s Tennis Association and the International Tennis Federation, and is only the fourth person ever to win a professional singles and doubles title at Wimbledon, having already won doubles there last year.
All of which makes all of the following all the more remarkable:
1) She’s the first girl to ever capture the U.S. Open singles championship since Rosemary Bruynserckx in 1973, and the second American woman in tennis history to win it.
2) She’s the first woman to ever win the U.S. Open singles title when she was 14 years old and the second since then.
3) She’s the first ever U.S. Open singles champion to come from New York, in the state that helped make her famous.
4) She’s the youngest-ever winner of the Wimbledon singles Championship, at just 13, and the third youngest ever to do so.
5) She’s the only U.S. Open singles champion to come from the U.S. State of New York, and possibly the only woman to ever do so in sports history.
6) Serena became a celebrity sensation overnight, when she competed in her first professional tournament at age 13 and won, a win that instantly put her on the map.
7) She’s the first American woman to win major tennis titles since Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who defeated Monica Seles in the 1993 U.S. Open final, and the second since Mamo de Jong was the world’s youngest winner back in 1991.
8) She is the first American woman to win