Attention, thieves: Don't ever try to steal a phone from Serena Williams

Serena Williams.
(Image credit: Graham Denholm/Getty Images)

When a would-be thief attempted to steal her phone, Serena Williams proved she's a force to be reckoned with off the tennis court, too.

On her Facebook page, Williams used her close call to encourage women to "step up to any challenge." Williams wrote that while eating a dinner of "delicious" Chinese food on Tuesday, a man stood next to her, and "something (I have now dubbed it my SUPERHERO sense) told me to watch him." Her phone was on the chair next to her, and even though she said she was watching him "from the corner of my eye," when she least expected it "this common petty thief grabbed my phone and swiftly left." That's when she jumped up, ran through the restaurant, and chased him. "He began to run but I was too fast," she said, adding that all the sprints she does during training "came in handy."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.