Serena Williams’ ex-mentor Patrick Mouratoglou has reviewed how the American attempted to threaten him upon the arrival of their most memorable practice meeting. Under Mouratoglou’s tutelage, Williams won 10 of her 23 singles Huge homerun titles. Nonetheless, as per the notable French mentor, things got off to a rough beginning between the pair, fundamentally because of Williams’ apparently unconcerned disposition towards him.
Mouratoglou was roped in by Williams as her mentor in front of the 2012 Wimbledon Titles. At that point, the American was falling off a shock first-round misfortune at the French Open; her lady first-round rout at a Huge homerun.
In the ESPN+ documentary series, ‘In The Arena: Serena Williams’, Mouratoglou revisited Williams’ first practice session under his supervision. The Frenchman conducted the session during the morning hours at one of the practice courts at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. However, according to Mouratoglou, the session didn’t start on a positive note, as Williams ignored his ‘good morning’ greeting (via “@religionofsports” on Instagram):
“Serena loves to intimidate people. She loves it. And she was trying to intimidate me that day. It was the first day of practice in Wimbledon. I’m waiting on the court for practice. She enters the court. I say, ‘good morning’, and she passes like this. Zero emotion on her face. She doesn’t even look at me,” Mouratoglou said.
The Frenchman, realizing that allowing Williams to behave with him in such an indifferent way would not allow their collaboration to bear fruit, took a firm stand. To assert his authority over the American, Mouratoglou hit the protruding front part of her cap, forcing her to pay attention to him. The Frenchman then proceeded to convey a few mandatory rules to Williams.
“If I let her do that first day, I’m done and I know it. She has a cap, and I hit the cap really hard. Not her head, but just this (protruding part of) the cap, and I hit it so hard that the cap goes like this on her face, and she’s shocked. I’m sure that nobody ever did this to Serena. No one. And especially not a guy who knows her for a few days,” Mouratoglou added.
“I tell her, ‘this is not going to work like that because I have a few rules that you will have to respect. Number one, when you enter the court in the morning, you look at me and you say, good morning. Rule number two, when I speak to you, you stop. You look at me and you listen to me and you answer me’,” Mouratoglou concluded.
Mouratoglou and Williams would proceed to become one of the most productive mentor player couples during their time together on the WTA Visit, with the American recovering her Reality No. 1 spot under the mentor’s direction. The Frenchman would in some cases utilize eccentric strategies to open Williams’ true capacity on the tennis court, one of which he itemized during a web recording recently.
