Serena Williams is a five-times Wimbledon champion but the American has surprisingly declared that she has "never really liked grass".
World No 2 Serena Williams shook out any cobwebs from four months away from tennis with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over France's Pauline Parmentier in the first round of the Auckland Classic on Tuesday.
It would be hard to bet against the Williams sisters meeting in their first Wimbledon final since 2009, but Angelique Kerber and Elena Vesnina won't just be making up the numbers in the last four on Thursday. While unseeded Vesnina has described her semi-final against world number one Serena Williams as a dream, she is playing inspired tennis, bringing the guile from two doubles slams to deliver baseline power and a deft touch at the net.
The peak remains tantalisingly close for Serena Williams but negotiating the final incline to a record-equalling 22nd Grand Slam singles title is proving the trickiest of all.
Ana Konjuh was not a year old when Serena Williams played her first US Open match but both will be in the Arthur Ashe Stadium spotlight on Wednesday, with four gripping quarter-finals to take centre stage at the year's final Grand Slam.
Serena Williams is on the brink of the grandest achievement in tennis, the single season Grand Slam, and even the leading men at the US Open championships starting on Monday are cheering her on.
Serena Williams started her quest to join Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova in joint fourth place on the career Grand Slam list with a 6-3, 6-1 victory over 18-year-old fellow American Taylor Townsend at the US Open on Tuesday.
Garbine Muguruza's chances of winning her maiden grand slam title -- and achieving the rare feat of beating Serena Williams twice in three years at Roland Garros -- may well depend on which version of the world number one turns up on Sunday.
Angelique Kerber feels vindicated that she now belongs at the upper echelons of the women's game after four years of consistency helped her into her first Grand Slam final at the Australian Open on Thursday.
'I've played injured most of the year -- whether it was my elbow, my knee, or in the finals moments after a certain match in Flushing, my heart' 'I'm a fierce competitor and I want to compete as well as I can, for as long as I can'
Serena Williams enters the Australian Open as a strong favourite to lift the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup but is all too aware that a sixth Melbourne Park title has now eluded her for five years.
Upbeat Venus ready to 'kill it' after loss to little sister
Serena Williams clinched a record 23rd grand slam title at the Australian Open on Saturday but spent most of the immediate aftermath talking about her older sister Venus.
Serena Williams allowed herself a few moments to enjoy her sixth Wimbledon title before thoughts turned to New York and the elusive calendar year feat.
Two-time Wimbledon champion and world number 11 Petra Kvitova was attacked in her home on Tuesday and is receiving medical attention.
Serena Williams will be wary of another semi-final slip-up when she takes to the Arthur Ashe Stadium court on Thursday to face 10th seed Karolina Pliskova for a spot in the US Open final.
Serena Williams stormed into the US Open quarter-finals in record-smashing style on Monday by easing past Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova 6-2, 6-3 to claim her record 308th Grand Slam match win.
Serena Williams made the most of a break in her match against 13th seed Svetlana Kuznetsova on Monday, when the Centre Court roof was closed after she threatened to sue organisers if she fell and injured herself on the slippery turf.
In the 18 years that she has been on tour, Sania Mirza was the standard-bearer for tennis in the country. Never before had an Indian player dominated from the back court with such conviction. Deepti Patwardhan Salutes the Incomparable Sania Mirza.
Andre Agassi says that he and Novak Djokovic need to learn to trust each other if their partnership is to deliver results for the world number four.
Even the Parisian stormclouds cleared for Serena Williams on Tuesday, as the new mother's baby steps back to Grand Slam tennis became a stride into the second round of the French Open.
Novak Djokovic beat Casper Ruud in the French Open final to win a men's record-extending 23rd Grand Slam title.
Serena Williams, who held all four of tennis's grand slam titles for the second time in her career and won 53 of 56 matches in 2015, was named Sportsperson of the Year by Sports Illustrated magazine on Monday.
The World No 2 announced her commitment to the social media entrepreneur shortly before the New Year and while it was "great", she was pushing it to the back of her mind, at least until after Melbourne Park.
Such has been Serena Williams's iron-fisted dominance of women's tennis that the American is one Wimbledon title away from achieving a 'Serena Slam' and halfway towards completing a rare calendar Grand Slam.
World No 1 Williams, 33, could not practise on Friday, still suffering from an illness that left her coughing and spluttering during her three-set semi-final win over Swiss Timea Bacsinszky.
He went on to lift the US Open title in 1994 and, after shaving his head on the advice of his then actress girlfriend Brooke Shields, the Australian Open crown in 1995 before adding an Olympic gold at Atlanta 1996.
With a 6-2, 6-1 3rd round win over Swedish Johanna Larsson at the US Open at Flushing Meadows on Saturday, Serena recorded her 307th Grand Slam victory and in doing so went past legendary Martina Novratilova to record the most wins in a major by a woman.
Serena Williams outplayed Maria Sharapova to claim the 2015 Australian Open championship in straight sets on Saturday.
Having annoyed Nadal with an underarm serve at Acapulco, Nick Kyrgios doubled down with the tactic to win two points against hapless Serb Dusan Lajovic at the Miami Open and fire up a timeworn debate between modern fans and purists.
If Serena Williams' rivals were hoping that the American would take some time out to savour drawing level with Steffi Graf's professional-era record of 22 grand slam titles, her coach Patrick Mouratoglou fired off an immediate warning.
Petra Kvitova and Lucie Safarova put the Czech Republic on the brink of the Fed Cup title with victories on the opening day of the final against Germany on Saturday.
Serena Williams underlined the difference in class and power between her and the rest of the women's field with a 6-0, 6-4 demolition of fourth seed Agnieszka Radwanska on Thursday to reach her seventh Australian Open final.
Images from all the action on Day 9 at the Australian Open in Melbourne on Wednesday
World No 1s Andy Murray and Angelique Kerber have been named top seeds for the first major of the season, Australian Open, which will commences on January 16.
List of Australian Open women's singles champions since the event began in 1922 (Australian unless stated):
Serena and Venus Williams added another chapter to what the world number one claims to be greatest story in tennis when she outslugged her sister 6-2, 1-6, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the semi-finals of the US Open.
Playing her first match of the North American hard court swing after pulling out of last week's event in Stanford with a sore right elbow, Williams played a ragged opening set in which she was broken four times while firing four double faults.
Serena Williams claimed a sixth Wimbledon title and fourth successive Grand Slam crown by suppressing the spirited attacking instincts of 20th-seeded Spaniard Garbine Muguruza to win Saturday's final 6-4, 6-4.
As tradition demands the Serb will open play on Centre Court on Monday as defending men's champion but rather than a gentle loosener the 28-year-old faces a real danger in the form of Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber, the world number 33.
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