Tennis legend Serena Williams will host the 2024 ESPY Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood July 11.
Williams will become the fourth woman to host the popular sports award show, the Associated Press reports. “This is a dream come true for me, and something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember,” Williams, who has 12 ESPYs, said in a statement.
Danica Patrick was the first woman to host the award show. She did that in 2018, shortly after she retired from auto racing. Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird co-hosted the virtual 2020 show with Russell Wilson during 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 show comes one night after the ESPN+ eight-part series on Williams’ career, In the Arena: Serena Williams. The Compton, Los Angeles, native is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She 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. In her 20-plus 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 Grand Slam in both singles and doubles.
Williams retired after the 2022 U.S. Open and has focused on raising
her two daughters, Olympia and Adira Ohanian, and other business endeavors. She launched her makeup line in April and runs Serena Ventures, a capital firm that invests in women and founders of color in early-stage companies.