Washington, Oct. 27 : American tennis great Serena Williams has said her being actively involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses movement, helped her to overcome her despair over elder sister Yetunde’s murder on September 14, 2003.

Describing it as the watershed moment, Serena said it happened when she was in Toronto for a television show.

That incident plunged her into deep depression. Waking in despair each day, she plummeted down the tennis rankings, reaching a low of 140.

“I still find it difficult to talk about what happened with Tunde. She was nine years older than me and was like a second mother. She called me ‘kid’ and took me clothes shopping and stuff. I could be kind of naughty growing up, but she was always so forgiving, just smiling and putting her arm around me. Even after we moved to Florida, we saw each other a lot. She was personal assistant to Venus and me for a time,” The Times quoted Serena, as saying.

Yetunde was killed in a drive-by shooting of the kind that Serena had heard reverberating around the neighbourhood when playing on those public courts in Compton.

Her sister had been out with her new boyfriend, a gang member, when someone started firing into the car. The bullets were meant for him. Yetunde was 31.

“I was sharing a room with Lyn [her sister] in Toronto when I found out,” Williams says.

“We just couldn’t take it in. I had been talking to Tunde on the phone earlier that day and she had been real excited about what was going on in her life, and mine. I just couldn’t make sense of it. It was like something out of a dream. I took a little time off from tennis, but then I threw myself back into it. I think that happens when people face tragedy,” (ANI)