Athlete

An athlete (American and British English) or sportsman (British English) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed and/or endurance. Athletes may be professionals or amateurs.

Most professional athletes have particularly well-developed physiques obtained by extensive physical training and strict exercise accompanied by a strict dietary regimen.

The word "athlete" is a romanization of the Greek: άθλητὴς, athlētēs, one who participates in a contest; from ἄθλος, áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, a contest or feat. It is the general term for all participants in any physical sport; its application to those who participate in other activities, such as horse riding or driving, is somewhat controversial.

Titles

"All-around athlete"

An "all-around athlete" is a person who competes in multiple sports at a high level. Examples of people who played numerous sports professionally include Jim Thorpe, Lionel Conacher, Deion Sanders (male), Danny Ainge (male) and Babe Zaharias (female). Others include Ricky Williams, Bo Jackson, and Damon Allen, each of whom was drafted both by Major League Baseball and by professional gridiron football leagues such as the NFL and the CFL. Japanese athletes such as Kazushi Sakuraba, Kazuyuki Fujita, Masakatsu Funaki and Naoya Ogawa have successfully competed in both professional wrestling and mixed martial arts.

Serena Williams

Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American professional tennis player who is ranked No. 1 in women's singles tennis. The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her world No. 1 in singles on six separate occasions. She became the world No. 1 for the first time on July 8, 2002, and achieved this ranking for the sixth time on February 18, 2013. She is the reigning champion of the French Open, Wimbledon and Olympic women's singles and doubles. Williams is popularly regarded as the greatest female tennis player of all time.

Williams holds the most major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female. Her record of 36 major titles puts her fifth on the all-time list and second in the open era with: 21 in singles, 13 in women's doubles, and two in mixed doubles. She is the most recent player, male or female, to have held all four major singles titles simultaneously (2002–03 and 2014–15), the fifth woman ever to do so and only the third player, male or female, to achieve this record twice after Rod Laver and Steffi Graf. She is also the most recent player, together with her sister Venus Williams, to have held all four Grand Slam women's doubles titles simultaneously (2009–10).