CaramelSmoothie
Practically Family
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The Williams sisters were a surprise (a mild one at best) more from how they came up through the ranks than from where they came from. In US tennis history there have been a good many champions who were products of the "public courts", both black (Arthur Ashe, Athea Gibson) and white (Billie Jean King, Jimmy Connors). The thing that made the Williams sisters unique to these others is that they rarely participated in age group tournaments, prefering instead to train against each other in private under their father's tutelage. So while the tennis world was well aware of them, there was too little tournament play to accurately indicate how well they would perform at the professional level. But even as they were flying somewhat under the radar, you had Bud Collins touting their play from their early teens.
I see, I was under the impression that their "wrong side of the tracks" upbringing was the focus of attention early in their careers. I guess that could have been more of a public relations angle to further their careers. Also, the father Richard Williams was not a tennis instructor. He said that he saw a tennis match on tv and saw how big of a check was handed to the winner and that's when he decided he would make his kids become tennis players. I believe the first two daughters didn't work out but once he tried out Venus and Serena that's when he knew he had his future champs and when he told this to people they thought he was crazy, lol.