Serena Williams won’t be encouraging her children to take up tennis

Serena Williams, in a recent interview with Sky Sports during the inauguration of her coach Patrick Mouratoglou’s new Academy in Nice, said that she won’t be encouraging her children to take up tennis. Although the legendary tennis star has won 22 Grand Slam Singles and is a person without whom any discussion of Open Era tennis would be incomplete, she has particularly specified saying that she would not fancy her children travelling and toiling along the same, gruelling path.

Williams said: “I wouldn’t put them [my own children] in tennis. I wouldn’t stop them if they wanted to play tennis, but I wouldn’t encourage tennis.”

The World Number 2 recently turned 35 this Monday and confessed how she this is not one of her best seasons. While losing the World Number 1 title was a small shock in itself, she has been struggling to find her form this season and had to bow out in the semi-finals of the US Open 2016, at Flushing Meadows, against Karolina Pliskova.

The Rio Olympics too, were a disappointing venture for her as she had to make an early exit in the 3^rd round of the Games. “I have been dealing with a lot of health issues since Wimbledon, that has been really frustrating, I told Venus that it ruined my Olympics!”, Williams said.

Some people have been asking questions about whether she can regain her form and go back to winning the majors like before. To this, her French coach Mouratoglou quickly reassured saying, “Of course she can win another slam. Winning one more is more than probable”.

Currently, Williams has decided to take a short break from tennis to fully recover from her knee injury. It is predicted that she won’t be playing in 2016 again. Even last year, she had taken a break of 4 months before playing in the Australian Open.

Angelique Kerber, who had defeated her in the finals of the Australian Open this year, is the current world Number 1 and is someone who is going to be a real obstacle in Serena’s path of breaking Steffi Graf’s record and clinching 23 Grand Slam titles which has stood since 1999.

During the event, Serena, when asked about what she had in mind about her children, told the reporters firmly that it would be quite unfair to pressurise her kids into playing tennis just because she’s a tennis player herself. If they have a knack for it, she will encourage them to hone their talent, she will not encourage them otherwise as it would create an unnecessary pressure on them.

She says, “I wouldn’t want the stigma of mummy Serena, I think that would be a lot of pressure and I would like for them to do their own thing and have their own name and be the best at whatever they wanted to do.”