Venus Williams is a tennis player.
The Grand Slam tournaments , also called majors , are the four most-important annual tennis events . The Championships , Wimbledon , commonly known simply as Wimbledon , is the oldest tennis tournament in the world , and is widely considered the most prestigious . Venus Ebony Starr Williams ( born June 17 , 1980 ) is an American professional tennis player who is generally regarded as one of the all-time greats of women 's tennis and who , along with younger sister Serena Williams , is credited with ushering in a new era of power and athleticism on the women 's professional tennis tour . Ranked World No. 11 in singles as of January 28 , 2017 , Williams has been ranked World No. 1 by the Women 's Tennis Association on three occasions , for a total of 11 weeks . By winning her 49th career singles title at the 2016 Taiwan Open , Williams became the 5th oldest WTA Tour titlist in the Open Era , at 35 years , 7 months and 28 days .