Serena Williams by the numbers: A look at the statistical dominance of one of the greatest tennis players ever

Serena Williams has announced her plans to step away from tennis via a first-person essay in Vogue. One of the greatest tennis players in the history of the sport, Williams has dominated throughout her career, and even some of her greatest peers have struggled to keep up.

Williams, who plans to play in the U.S. Open later this year, will retire with an impressive resume. Her 23 Grand Slam titles are the most in the Open Era, and her 73 total singles titles rank eighth all time, but even those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

The Grand Slam tournaments represent tennis’ biggest stage, and Williams seems to love the spotlight they provide. For example, once Williams reaches the semifinal of a Grand Slam, she rarely misses the opportunity to advance to the final. Throughout her illustrious career, Williams has reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam 40 different times. In those matches, she boasts an incredibly impressive record of 33-7.

Then, there is how well Williams has performed against other great tennis players of her era. The rival Williams is most well-acquainted with, her sister Venus, owns seven Grand Slam titles and 49 singles titles throughout her career. Still, Serena Williams has frequently gotten the better of that matchup with a 19-12 record against Venus.

Perhaps the most impressive and lop-sided rivalry of Williams’ career was against Maria Sharapova. Those two met 22 times throughout their careers, and Williams won a whopping 20 of them. At one point, Williams owned a 19-match winning streak against Sharapova. During that span, Sharapova won just two sets against Williams. Sharapova won five major titles, and she couldn’t beat Williams in the last 14 years of her career.

Williams also owns winning records against many other legendary tennis players like Victoria Azarenka (18-5), Jennifer Capriati (10-7), and Justine Henin (8-6). Between Venus Williams, Sharapova, Azarenka, Capriati, and Henin, there are a total of 26 Grand Slam titles. That is just three more than Serena Williams has won on her own.

When facing off against the best players in the world, Williams has taken her game to another level. In 555 career matches against top-10 opponents, Williams owns a record of 435-120, which comes out to a jaw-dropping 78.0% win percentage.

There are plenty of other accomplishments that demonstrate Williams’ greatness. She proved time and time again that she could win on any surface and is the last woman to win the Surface Slam — winning a major on each of the three surfaces in a calendar year — doing so in 2015.

Williams is also one of just two women’s singles players to earn a Career Super Slam, which consists of championships at all four Grand Slam tournaments, a gold medal at the Olympics, and a year-end championship. Steffi Graf is the only other woman to accomplish that feat.

When Williams does walk away from her playing career, she will go down as the most accomplished player of her era, and one of the greatest athletes in American sports history.