Serena Williams‘ 2003 NetPro signed patch rookie card sold for $266,400 at Goldin Auctions. In the same auction house, Jackie Robinson‘s bat had previously sold for $1.08 million. The card is PSA 8 AUTO 10 rated and has a match-worn clothing portion.
Williams started her professional career in tennis in 1995, yet it was the first time in over a decade that a set of NetPro tennis cards was made public. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Venus Williams are among the athletes whose first fully sanctioned cards are also included in this set.
Williams’ spouse, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, stated on Twitter that he did not purchase the current record card.
The previous high for a women’s trading card was $117,000, recorded in January for a Serena Williams rookie card from SI For Kids in July 1999. In March, another of her cards from the same set fetched nearly $91,000 on eBay. An August 1992 SI For Kids Mia Hamm card sold for $34,440 in 2021, breaking the previous record.
The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has ranked her as the world No. 1 in singles for 319 weeks, along with a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks, and she has closed the year as the No. 1 five times. She holds the most Grand Slam singles titles of any player in the Open Era and also the second most.