Playing Style
Williams is primarily a baseline player, with a serve that critics, pundits and tennis experts consider the greatest serve in the history of women's tennis. Her game is built around taking immediate control of rallies with her powerful and consistent serve, return of serve, and forceful groundstrokes from both her forehand and backhand swings. Williams' forehand is considered to be among the most powerful shots in the women's game as is her double-handed backhand. Williams strikes her backhand groundstroke using an open stance, and uses the same open stance for her forehand. Williams's aggressive play, a "high risk" style, is balanced in part by her serve, which combines great power and placement with very high consistency. Her serve has been hit as hard as 129 mph (207.6 km/h), the third-fastest all-time among female players (Venus and Brenda Schultz-McCarthy both recorded the fastest with 130 mph) and is generally considered the greatest female serve of all time. At the 2012 Wimbledon Championships, Serena hit a tournament record of 102 aces which was more than any of the men hit during the two weeks. Serena also possesses a very solid volley and powerful overhead which is very useful for her net game. Although many think of Williams as only an offensive player, she also plays a strong defensive game.
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“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)