by Jeroslyn JoVonn
May 16, 2024
Tennis champion Serena Williams is set to host the 2024 ESPY Awards taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in July.
Tennis champion Serena Williams is set to host the 2024 ESPY Awards taking place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in July.
The 23x Grand Slam winner will become the fourth woman to host the coveted sports award show, AP News reports. With 12 ESPYs in her trophy and award case and 25 years of dominating tennis courts around the world, hosting the ESPYs was next in line for Williams.
“This is a dream come true for me, and something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” Williams said in a statement.
“It has been a sensational year for sports and an unprecedented one for female athletes. I can’t wait to celebrate everyone onstage in July.”
Williams follows Danica Patrick who was the first woman to host the award show in 2018 shortly after she retired from auto racing. In 2020, Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, and Russell Wilson co-hosted the virtual 2020 show amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Williams is only the second woman to host the ESPYs by herself. The annual award show recognizes individual and team athletic achievement and other sports-related performances throughout the year.
The July 11th show comes one night after the ESPN+ eight-part series on Williams’ celebrated sports career, “In the Arena: Serena Williams.” The Compton, Los Angeles native is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time having held the world No. 1 singles ranking by the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) for 319 weeks.
She enjoyed a record-tying 186 consecutive weeks as the world No. 1 singles title holder and finished as the year-end No. 1 five times throughout her career. In her 20+ years of competing, Williams claimed 23 major (Grand Slam) women’s singles titles, the most in the Open Era and the second-most in history. Notably, she is the only player to achieve a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles.
Williams retired after the 2022 U.S. Open and has put her focus on raising her two daughters, Olympia and Adira Ohanian, and other business endeavors. She launched her makeup line in April and takes pride in running her Serena Ventures capital firm that invests in women and founders of color in early-stage companies.
