Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, Michigan to Richard Williams and Oracene Price. She is the youngest of Price's five daughters: half-sisters Yetunde (1972–2003), Lyndrea and Isha Price, and full sister Venus. When the children were young, the family moved to the city of Compton in Los Angeles county, where Serena started playing tennis at the age of five. Her father home-schooled Serena and her sister Venus and to this end, Serena Williams was and remains coached by both her parents.
Williams' family moved from Compton to West Palm Beach when she was nine so that she could attend the tennis academy of Rick Macci, who would provide additional coaching. Macci spotted the exceptional talents of the sisters. He did not always agree with Williams' father but respected that "he treated his daughters like kids, allowed them to be little girls." Richard stopped sending his daughters to national junior tennis tournaments when Williams was ten, since he wanted them to take it slow and focus on school work. Another motivation was racial, as he had allegedly heard parents of white players talk about the Williams sisters in a derogatory manner during tournaments. At that time, Williams had a 46–3 record on the United States Tennis Association junior tour and was ranked No. 1 among under ten players in Florida. In 1995, Richard pulled his daughters out of Macci's academy, and from then on took over all coaching at their home. When asked in 2000 whether having followed the normal path of playing regularly on the junior circuit would have been beneficial, Williams responded: "Everyone does different things. I think for Venus and I, we just tried a different road, and it worked for us."
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