Venus came first. Before Serena was the dominant force in women's tennis, Venus was ranked number one in the world, winning majors, and establishing the Williams family as the most significant presence the sport had seen in a generation. She won her first Grand Slam title in 2000, won Olympic singles gold in Sydney that same year, and for a period was the best player on the planet. What is less often noted is that she pursued all of this alongside a formal education conducted on tour: she earned an associate's degree in fashion design from the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale and a second associate's degree in business from Indiana University East, completing both while competing at Grand Slam level. Two degrees, seven majors, and an equal prize money campaign, built simultaneously across the same years. The sport's attention eventually moved toward the player accumulating the most titles, and the full weight of what Venus built in the early years has not always received the accounting it deserves. She paved the road. That is not a lesser contribution because someone else traveled it further.

In 2011 she was diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune disease that affects energy and joint function, and she continued competing at Grand Slam level for years after the diagnosis, reaching the Wimbledon final as recently as 2017. Four Olympic gold medals, seven Grand Slam singles titles, equal prize money at the sport's oldest major, two degrees earned while competing, a career conducted across three decades with an autoimmune condition in its second half. Venus Williams did not wait for the sport to recognize what she was worth. She wrote the argument herself and won.