SSC
In which year did Serena Williams win her first Grand Slam singles title?
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Answer: Option A — 1999
Detailed Solution
Serena Williams of the USA won her first Grand Slam singles title at the 1999 US Open, at the age of 17. She defeated Martina Hingis of Switzerland, the world number one, in the final.
Career highlights of Serena Williams:
She won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any player in the Open Era (since 1968). Only Margaret Court has more (24), many of them before the Open Era.
She won 7 Australian Open, 3 French Open, 7 Wimbledon and 6 US Open singles titles.
She completed the "Serena Slam" twice, holding all four Grand Slam titles at the same time (2002-03 and 2014-15), though not in a single calendar year.
She won her last Grand Slam title at the 2017 Australian Open while she was about eight weeks pregnant.
She won four Olympic gold medals: singles at London 2012 and three doubles golds with her sister Venus Williams (2000, 2008 and 2012). She completed the "career Golden Slam" in both singles and doubles.
With Venus, she won 14 Grand Slam women's doubles titles.
She was ranked world number one for 319 weeks.
She retired from professional tennis after the 2022 US Open.
Other records in women's tennis:
- Steffi Graf (Germany) won the "Golden Slam" in 1988: all four Grand Slams and the Olympic gold in one year.
- Martina Navratilova holds the record for most Wimbledon singles titles (9).
- Chris Evert won a record 7 French Open titles.
Why not the other options?
- ✗1997 is when Martina Hingis won her first Grand Slam singles title (Australian Open).
- ✗2002 is when Serena won three Grand Slams in one year (French Open, Wimbledon, US Open).
- ✗1995 is when Serena turned professional.
Quick tip
Remember: Serena Williams = first Grand Slam at the 1999 US Open (beat Hingis); 23 Grand Slam singles titles (Open Era record); 4 Olympic golds; retired 2022.
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Sports — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Sports, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers sports GK: major tournaments and their venues, trophies and cups associated with each sport, sports terms, the number of players in a team, sports awards in India, Olympic and Asian Games facts, and famous sportspersons and their achievements. Common questions ask which sport a trophy belongs to (such as the Durand Cup for football or the Ranji Trophy for cricket), which term is used in which sport, and where a tournament was held. Records and results change after every season, so pair static facts such as team sizes and terms with recent results from current affairs. Practise the sports questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.