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17 fascinating facts about Serena Williams, who's on the brink of tennis history

Last week, we examined all the reasons Roger Federer was the greatest tennis player in the world. On Monday, the day Serena Williams opens the third leg of her Grand Slam quest, we look at why she’s the best woman who ever lived.

 1. With a win at Wimbledon, Serena will become the first woman since 1988 to win the first three legs of the Grand Slam.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

Winning the Australian, French and Wimbledon had only been done twice before (Margaret Court in 1970 and Steffi Graf in 1988) and each time, both women went on to win the Grand Slam.

2. Serena has more Grand Slams (20) than everyone else in the field who isn’t related to her, combined (14).

(AP)

(AP)

Serena and Venus have combined for 27 Slams. The rest of the field has barely half that: Maria Sharapova (5), Petra Kvitova (2), Victoria Azarenka (2), Svetlana Kuznetsova (2), Ana Ivanovic (1), Francesca Schiavone (1), Sam Stosur (1).

3. Serena is 20-4 in Grand Slam finals.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

That’s an insane winning percentage of 83%. So often in sports you’ll hear people insist that Player X isn’t a choker, usually with flawed logic coming from a place of confirmation bias. But no one has ever made the case with Serena: In her last 13 Slam finals, Serena is 12-1 overall.

4. She’s bidding to break a tie with sister Venus for her sixth Wimbledon title, which would put her in sole position of third place overall.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

Steffi Graf had seven titles at the All England Club, while Martina Navratilova had an unthinkable nine.

5. The world No. 1 is 72-10 at Wimbledon.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

That’s the exact record of the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls for all you multi-sport fans. Those 10 losses are to nine different women. (Venus is the only person to beat her twice.) But she’s lost in every round, with the exception of the first — which has happened only once in her career, to Virginie Razzano in 2012, a loss which started her current dominant run of seven majors in 12 starts — and the second. Of the 10 losses, six have come to players ranked worse than her, though not necessarily seeded worse. (For instance, Serena was ranked No. 25 when she lost to No. 9 Marion Bartoli in 2011, but because of Wimbledon’s seeding procedures, the American was moved up to No. 7.) And in those 10 losses, she has only lost twice after winning the first set.

The 10 losses: R32 (1998), SF (2000), QF (2001), F (2004), R32 (2005), QF (2007), 2008 (F), 2011 (R16), 2013 (R16), 2014 (R32). As you’ll notice, Serena hasn’t won at the All England Club since 2012, when she pulled the Wimbledon/Olympics double.

6. Serena is the last player to pull the French Open/Wimbledon double.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

While the Aussie-French double is tough, so is French-Wimbledon. Serena did it in her first prime, back in 2002, a win which was part of her “Serena Slam.” In the last 30 years, only two women have done the clay/grass transition, though Steffi Graf did it four times.

7. Only one other active player has the career Grand Slam: Maria Sharapoava.

(AP)

(AP)

Sharapova, of course, stunned Williams in the 2004 Wimbledon final when she was just 17 years old. That loss was part of a Serena tailspin that involved winning just two majors in 14 starts, until the 2008 U.S. Open. Since then, Serena has won exactly half her majors (12 out of 24). But getting back to Sharapova, after beating Serena in their next match — at the 2004 WTA Finals — Sharapova has lost 16 straight. It’s one of the most dominant streaks in sports. You know how athletes always say they want to win championships against the best? I’m sure Sharapova would prefer winning Wimbledon with Serena Williams on the other side of the net, but, give her some truth serum and she’d say she’d much rather Serena be looooong gone before then.

8. With a win at Wimbledon, Serena would become the oldest woman to ever win a Grand Slam.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

A woman aged 30 or over has won a major 20 times in the Open era, with Serena pulling off the feat a whopping seven times. But she’s still not the oldest to win one; that honor belongs to Martina Navratilova, who won Wimbledon in 1990 at 33 years and 263 days. Serena was 12 days younger when she won the French Open earlier this month. So, with her next Slam win, Serena takes the multi-candled cake.

Also, her and Martina are the only women over the age of 32 (!) to win Slams. The other 16 occurrences of 30+ women winning were with players aged 30 and 31. (The other women with multiple Slams over 30: Margaret Court/Martina (3) and Chris Evert/Billie Jean King (2).

9. Serena is seeded No. 1, which is bad news for the rest of the field.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

This is the 18th time she’s been seeded No. 1 at a Slam. She’s won in 10 of those starts.

10. With all this Serena domination, here’s an odd stat: In her last 16 Slams, she has seven wins and seven exits in the fourth round of before.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

Then again, she’s also 242-20 since that return (.924) and owns a 74-9 record (.892) in Slams, to go along with a 30-3 record in finals.

11. Wimbledon is only Serena’s third-best Slam.

(AP)

(AP)

She has five titles at the AEC, compared with six in Melbourne and New York (and three in Roland Garros). In terms of winning percentage, it’s .898 (U.S. Open), .883 (Australian Open), .878 (Wimbledon) and .831 (French Open).

12. If Serena can stay at No. 1 through next September, she’d own the record for most consecutive weeks at No. 1.

(AP)

(AP)

Steffi Graf is the current leader with 186 weeks, while Serena trails by 62 — a little more than a year. Though it’s hard to see anyone coming up and usurping Serena from her throne atop the sport, anything can happen. Still, we’d bet Serena gets that mark next year.

13. Roger Federer thinks Serena and Venus are set for a big tournament.

(Getty Images)

(Getty Images)

“I wouldn’t imagine them still playing and playing poorly,” said the men’s G.O.A.T. of the sisters. “They’re too good for that.”

14. Serena was once ranked No. 1 in singles and doubles at the same time.

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

(USA TODAY Sports Images)

It came during nine glorious weeks in the summer of 2010, after her and Venus won the “Williams Slam,” taking Wimbledon 2009 through the French Open 2010. Only seven women have done that before, just two with longer streaks than Serena’s nine weeks.

15. The younger Williams also holds the record for longest break in between stints at No. 1.

(EPA)

(EPA)

She went 5 years and 29 days between No. 1 appearances, from August 2003 through September 2008. Those were her lost years, due in large part to two Belgian women — Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters.

16. Serena made almost $2.5 million more in winnings in 2013 ($12.3 million) than the entire top 10 on the money list made in 1995.

(WTA)

(WTA)

That’s thanks, in large part, to both Billie Jean King and her sister Venus, who were champions of equal pay for female tennis players. (It also is due to the overall inflation of sports winnings and salaries over the past two decades. In 1995, the total pot was $35 million for tournaments. In 2013, it was $118 million.)

17. Surprisingly, Serena is getting longer odds (7/4) to win Wimbledon than Novak Djokovic (5/4).

(Reuters)

(Reuters)

This goes with my prediction that Serena won’t win due to the pressure of going for a Grand Slam but, shoot, with Djokovic’s draw (even though he avoids Federer/Nadal/Murray until the final), I like that Serena number far, far better.

(Big thanks to the WTA for providing many of these Serena stats.)

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