“I said ‘hello’ and she doesn’t answer me as if I were a stranger,” Patrick Mouratoglou reveals Serena Williams’ shocking ‘brat-like’ behavior from their first practice session together

At Wimbledon in June, Serena Williams, the former world number one, resumed active play after more than a year away. The 23-time Grand Slam champion, who dropped all the way to 1204th in the global rankings, was given a wildcard. In the first round, she faced Frenchwoman Harmony Tan in one of the women’s draw’s longest matches, which lasted more than three overs. Williams was defeated 5-7, 6-1, 6-7. (7).

Her former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou recently parted ways with her and became a coach to former world no.1, Simona Halep. Mouratoglou had worked with Serena since 2012, helping her win 10 of her 23 grand slam titles and an Olympic gold medal.

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“She takes power over people” Former coach recounts the first day of training with Serena Williams

Patrick Mouratoglou, coach of 10 years to Serena Williams, shared a rather crazy anecdote about his first training session with the American. He revealed how rude Serena was being as she didn’t even speak to him for a few minutes.

“It was the first training session in Wimbledon, and in fact, she arrived on the field in the morning, I was there before her, I said ‘hello’ and she doesn’t answer me as if I were a stranger. I don’t say anything, we start the train, and after a quarter of an hour I turn to her and she doesn’t even look at me, it’s as if I hadn’t spoken,” he said.

“So I waited for her to sit down and effectively when she sat down, I gave a big blow in her visor, it surprised her and I said to her: “Listen, if you want it to go well you will have to respect two, three rules and rule number one is when you arrive in the morning. when you arrive in the morning, you look at me and you say hello and rule number two, when I talk to you you look at me and you answer me.”

Elaborating on Williams’ temperament, he said, “I knew afterward that it was her way of taking power, she knows that she is impressive, in addition. She represents something very strong and so she takes power over people with a complexity that internally and when she has taken power, it’s over. So it was very important at first to lay the foundations that could give us a chance that it worked.”

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