Vogue’ The happiest moment of Venus Williams’s seventeen-year-old life was not when she beat the top-ranked Martina Hingis to make it to the finals in January’s Adidas International in Sydney. It was not when she went on to win the mixed doubles at the Australian Open a few days later. It was not even when she beat number-two-seeded Lindsay Davenport to win her first professional singles title in Oklahoma City in March, or when, after a 30-minute break, she joined her sister Serena to win the doubles title as well.
The happiest moment of Venus Williams’s life came at a promotional event a few days earlier when she and Serena managed to throw $485 worth of groceries into two shopping carts to win a version of Supermarket Sweep. The girls are so devoted to the television show that, according to their mother, the grocery-store event was one of the main reasons they decided to play the tournament, the IGA Tennis Classic. “It’s like realizing a dream,” Venus tells me.
“I always wanted to be on that show. It was more exciting than winning any match. I’m not kidding.
It was wonderful.” Serena, sixteen, is equally thrilled: “I can’t stop thinking about it. I could do this, like, every day.
” Tennis may not be the most important thing in their young lives, but they are already important to women’s tennis. After only two years of playing a purposefully sparse professional schedule, Venus, with her six-foot-one-and-a-half-inch frame and her 123-miles-per-hour .
