Serena Williams is a force to be reckoned with. The iconic tennis player has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era. She also formally held the Women’s Tennis Association title for World number 1 female tennis player on eight separate occasions between 2002 and 2017.
Williams continues to be wildly successful in her tennis career. She has said though, that her proudest achievements were in the last few years after welcoming daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. to the world with husband Alexis Ohanian. We take a look at this couple’s journey of love.
Williams and Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit, met by chance in May 2015 while in Rome. Williams was dining with friends at the Cavalieri Hotel when Ohanian sat down at the table next to the group.
“This big guy comes and he just plops down at the table next to us, and I’m like, ‘Huh! All these tables and he’s sitting here?'” she told Vanity Fair.
To encourage him to move, William’s group told him that there was a rat at the table. Ohanian didn’t fall for the story, so Williams invited him to join their table. He also watched her play at the Italian Open that same day.
Later that same month, Williams invited Ohanian to watch her play in the French Open after she performed poorly at the Italian Open. He flew to Paris to watch her, and they spent six hours together prior to the tournament walking around the city and falling in love. The pair went Instagram official over a year later in November 2016.
In an interview, Williams explained why she fell for Ohanian.
“Alexis doesn’t dim my light. He doesn’t try to dim my light. He puts me in the light, even if I don’t want to be. He pushes me to further points I never thought about,” she said. “It always was something that I could see in some relationships – my light would be dimmer. Now I feel like I can shine really bright and still do everything that I want to do.”
The pair were engaged in December 2016 at the very same table at the Roman hotel where they first met. Soon after the proposal, Williams posted a poem to Reddit announcing their engagement.
“I came home/A little late/Someone had a bag packed for me/And a carriage awaited/Destination: Rome/To escort me to my very own “charming”/Back to where our stars first collided/And now it was full circle/At the same table we first met by chance/This time he made it not by chance/But by choice/Down on one knee/He said 4 words/And/r/isaidyes,” she wrote.
A month after their engagement, they found out they were expecting their first child. They welcomed daughter Alexis Olympia in September 2017. She was named after her father and her initials (AO) also represent the Australian Open, which Williams won in 2017 while pregnant.
The pair tied the knot two months later on November 16 at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans. Their extravagant wedding was ‘Beauty and the Beast’ themed, and featured A-listers like Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Kim Kardashian, Kelly Rowland, Ciara, and of course, sister Venus Williams.
For their nuptials, Williams stunned in a beautiful ballgown designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, the same designer who created Kate Middleton’s wedding dress. She later changed into two different Vera Wang dresses for the reception.
Two and half years later, the couple are still going strong. Daughter Olympia has become a social media star in her own right as she has her own Instagram account (run by her parents, of course).
In January 2020, Williams won the ASB classic, her first singles title since 2017. Ohanian is a large proponent for paternal leave and runs a podcast called ‘Business Dad’ where he interviews fellow celebrity fathers.
Feature image: Instagram / Alexis Ohanian
