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Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal turned pro in 2001 and built his career around an extraordinary heavy topspin forehand and relentless court coverage, a combination that made him particularly dominant on clay — a surface where he won a men's-record 14 French Open titles, a total so far ahead of any other player at any Grand Slam event that it's without real precedent in the sport. Nadal finished his career with 22 Grand Slam singles titles, and his rivalry with Roger Federer, especially their 2008 Wimbledon final, often cited as the greatest tennis match ever played, helped define men's tennis through the 2000s and 2010s alongside a later, similarly intense rivalry with Novak Djokovic. Nicknamed the "King of Clay," Nadal's dominance at Roland Garros included a stretch from 2010 to 2014 in which he won the tournament five times in six years, and he didn't lose a single French Open match until 2009, going undefeated there across his first four appearances. Nadal's career was repeatedly interrupted by injuries, particularly to his knees, given the physical toll of his high-intensity playing style — a level of on-court effort that made his longevity, winning majors from 2005 all the way through 2022, arguably as impressive as the title count itself, since his game was never built around conserving energy the way some longer-lived players' styles are.
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Serena Williams
Serena Williams turned pro in 1995 at 14 and, across a career that stretched into her late 30s, won 23 Grand Slam singles titles — the most of any player in the Open Era, which began in 1968, and one shy of Margaret Court's all-time record, set partly before the Open Era's start. In 2002 and 2003, Williams held all four major singles titles simultaneously — the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open — a feat known as the "Serena Slam," and she repeated the achievement again in 2014-2015, becoming the only player in the Open Era to complete a non-calendar-year Grand Slam twice. She won four Olympic gold medals, one in singles (2012) and three in doubles alongside her sister Venus (2000, 2008, 2012), and the two sisters' rivalry, playing out over more than two decades including nine Grand Slam singles finals against each other, is one of the defining storylines in modern tennis. Williams reached a major final at the 2018 Wimbledon Championships less than a year after giving birth, a run that highlighted both her competitiveness and the physical demands elite tennis places on players returning from pregnancy — a topic her career helped push further into mainstream sports conversation than it had been before.
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