{"id":131257,"date":"2025-08-09T08:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131257\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T08:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:22:09","slug":"what-bill-clinton-told-serena-williams-after-she-won-her-first-grand-slam-at-the-us-open-in-1999","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/131257\/","title":{"rendered":"What Bill Clinton told Serena Williams after she won her first Grand Slam at the US Open in 1999"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>The Williams sisters are the most successful sporting siblings in history, with Serena and Venus both legends of the game.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Serena is the younger of the two sisters and managed to win a staggering 23 Grand Slam titles, with Venus chipping in with seven of her own. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/venus-williams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Venus<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/serena-williams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Serena<\/a> had many battles against each other on the grandest stages, and the pair remain very close to each other. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s fair to say that Venus is only semi-retired after making a comeback in the United States over the last few weeks, much to the delight of her fans. <\/p>\n<p>Back in 1999, Venus failed to set up a final with her sister as she lost to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetennisgazette.com\/tag\/martina-hingis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Martina Hingis<\/a> in the semifinal, facing Serena in the showpiece Flushing Meadows match. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2206923307-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"Serena Williams watches Novak Djokovic play Lorenzo Musetti at the 2025 Miami Open\" class=\"wp-image-114398\" \/>Photo by Matthew Stockman\/Getty ImagesWhat Bill Clinton told Serena Williams after the US Open in 1999<\/p>\n<p>The president of the United States of America at the time was keen to congratulate Serena on her first Grand Slam victory and it seems he was a big fan. <\/p>\n<p>Speaking in her press conference after being in the winner\u2019s circle for the first time, she was quizzed on the call with Clinton and shared what was said. <\/p>\n<p>Serena said: \u201cIt was very exciting. I thought for sure my day couldn\u2019t get any better. The next thing I knew, someone was telling me, \u2018The President of the United States wants to talk\u2019, I was just thinking, \u2018Wow\u2019. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe said that they had watched my last three matches and they were really rooting for me, him and Chelsea also. I talked to her also, she\u2019s really nice. It was pretty exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Few could have predicted Serena\u2019s dominance in 1999<\/p>\n<p>Although Serena always looked destined for big things, it was hard to imagine just how dominant she would be back in 1999. <\/p>\n<p>Winning a Grand Slam so early on always set her up well and it was no surprise that Clinton was taken in by the aura of the younger Williams sister. <\/p>\n<p>To finish her career with 23 Grand Slam titles cements her place as the greatest female player of all-time and it\u2019s hard to imagine anyone on the current tour getting anywhere close to that number. <\/p>\n<p>Williams remains a brilliant ambassador for the game of tennis and is correctly considered the best female player to ever swing a tennis racket. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Williams sisters are the most successful sporting siblings in history, with Serena and Venus both legends of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":131258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[5224,62,1464,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-131257","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-serena-williams","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114997844004341610","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}