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The life and career journey of tennis great Serena Williams will be the focus of a new documentary series to premiere on ESPN.
The news was announced on Tuesday (May 16), at the upfront presentation held by the Walt Disney Company in New York City. The series, entitled In the Arena: Serena Williams, was introduced by the superstar on stage. She told the audience that her reason for being there personally was that “you’re talking about building connections with fans and our family is super-obsessed with Disney.” Joking with the audience, she continued: “My big plan was to break my baby news at the Disney upfront, but the Met Gala got in the way of those plans.”
The series, she stated, would be “an unflinching account of my life and my 23 Grand Slam victories — not counting doubles.” It follows the highly-regarded documentary series Man in the Arena: Tom Brady, about the iconic NFL quarterback which also debuted on ESPN, going on to win the 2022 Sports Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary Series. The network will be co-producing the series along with Tom Brady’s 199 Productions and Williams’ production company she has with Caroline Currier, Nine Two Six Productions and Religion of Sports. Gotham Chopra, who was involved in Kobe Bryant’s Muse, will direct.
The series description reads in part: “Several of Serena’s most significant Grand Slam tournaments and defining personal milestones are examined and decoded in detail. The series juxtaposes Serena’s spectacular on-court achievements and cultural impact with dramatic personal challenges. Through it all, Serena fights to maintain her place atop the tennis world while juggling the transformational experience of starting a family.”
There is no date announced yet for the series. A previous multi-episode series in 2017, Being Serena, was a striking and raw look at the champion’s pregnancy and birth of her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr. It also gave an unflinching eye to the situation after Williams delivered her child via emergency C-section in addition to covering her marriage to tech entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian and the path back to competition in 2018.
