Williams, 34, the top-ranked tennis player in women's singles, posted a picture of herself in a superhero outfit on Facebook and described a dramatic ordeal that she said took place at a Chinese restaurant, where a man stood next to her and lingered a bit too close to her table for comfort.
Though, surveillance video suggests the encounter was not as dramatic as Williams's widely shared tale on Facebook yet she did chase down the alleged phone thief.
Williams said her "superhero sense" proved correct when the man grabbed her phone and ducked out of the restaurant.
"He began to run but I was too fast. (Those sprints came in handy) I was upon him in a flash!" Serena said.
There were few details about the episode from her Facebook post. Williams did not say what city she was in, what type of phone she had or the identity of her dinner companion. Surveillance footage broadcast by "Good Morning America" show yesterday offered more information.
Williams then rushes to follow him out of the restaurant.
The footage shows Williams walking quickly to catch up with the man, who does not appear to be running.
The video does not exactly show a superhero phone rescue, as she recounted on Facebook, but it is a fast-moving, calm one carried out by a professional athlete.
She said in the post that she used the "most menacing yet calm no nonsense voice I could muster" to ask "if he 'accidentally' took the wrong phone." The man then returned the device.
Anastasia Villanueva, a waitress at the restaurant, was quoted as saying that Williams said she was looking to avoid conflict with the man.
After recovering her phone, Williams says she was met with a standing ovation upon her return to the restaurant.
