“You’ve got to have patience,” Rick Macci vehemently believes Serena Williams wouldn’t be a good coach
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Serena Williams
A FirstSportz exclusive with Serena and Venus Williams’ childhood coach, Rick Macci.
Question– Another player you were associated with, Sofia Kenin. She won the Australian Open but she’s gone now. What has happened to her?
I coached Sofia from age 5-12 and if you go back and look at all the videos- I said she’s the scariest little creature I’ve ever coached. And people went there he is, saying there’s another great player. I said she’ll be Top 10 in the world at age 20- I was wrong. By 21, she was Top 10 so I missed it by a year but yeah, mentally she always had it. She was in a bubble, like Sharapova. What happened was this- I think when she had all the success, then she gets other interests whether it be boyfriend, or dad’s not involved.
She lost a little bit of competitiveness because of her other interests. And then she got injured and now it’s going to take her a while to get everything back. But you don’t lose the ability, you don’t lose talent, she has probably only lost her confidence. I think she got side-tracked by other things but now she’s on her way back and no one wishes her more success. Because I know she has it inside of her. It’s just gonna take a while to get it back and as we both know, not only in sports but in life, confidence is such a big thing. Little things can trigger it and little things can just make you fear it and lose all confidence. You’ve also got social media- all the interviews are negative but I hope she comes back. She got sidetracked with other interests but hopefully, she’s on her way back.
Rick Macci’s take on the Serena Williams-Maria Sharapova rivalry
Question– Apart from Serena, you’ve also had an association with Maria Sharapova. And given their rivalry – maybe it was a lopsided one but they had one amazing rivalry. What do you reckon, is it the greatest matchup in women’s tennis?
I think for the media and other people, it is because they made it pretty clear – we don’t like each other. And whenever people don’t like each other- one’s making more money, one has more endorsements, it’s kind of like a catfight. As time went on, Serena knew one thing that she had to be aggressive. She had it in her ‘I have to punch her before she punches me and I’ve to take advantage of her mobility’. Maria was a great ball striker but she wasn’t amazing defensively and once Serena figured that out, she just kinda dominated after the early beginning.
At the end of the day, because they were very outspoken ‘We don’t like each other’ early on, that makes for a great rivalry but at the end of the day, a rivalry is something that goes back and forth and is close at the wire, not just when someone keeps pounding you. But yeah, once Serena figured out I gotta play aggressively because if I don’t, the same thing is gonna happen that happened at Wimbledon [2004]. So it was a great rivalry, but Serena figured it out real quick and like many people, she never looked back as I said earlier, when I played Serena Williams, that’s why she’s on Mount Rushmore because she makes you rush more and she really made Sharapova rush a lot.
About Maria, when I had her at 11, even though she had limitations, I told her dad that she could be No.1 in the world because she was in a bubble. Mentally, she had it. In Kenin, I saw that. I didn’t see it in Serena because it had to be cultivated but once you have that mental box checked, that’s a big start. Maria was in a bubble and when you look at the way she played, she had the same ritual. She was kinda like Nadal in that respect- just very locked in. She knew she wasn’t going to out-athlete people and she wasn’t going to blow people away with her defensive skills or volley skills, she checked a few boxes but she checked them as well as anybody who played women’s tennis.
Rick Macci on whether Serena Williams could become a good coach or not
Question– Serena wasn’t happy after losing 2004 Wimbledon final to Sharapova, a teenager. She has had her fair share of controversies over the years. Maybe it is because of her Compton ruthless aggression you can say and recently, she showed some interest in coaching. Do you think Serena could become a good coach?
I’m sure she has words of wisdom but at the end of the day, you’ve got to have patience and lots of patience. I’m bulletproof. Listen, I’ve put up with Capriati, Richard Williams, Jim, and tennis players’ fathers from outer space. It’s important to understand that you’ve got to be bulletproof and have a lot of patience with stuff like that. I think she has a lot of words of wisdom where she comes from but she’s such a perfectionist, who knows she’d have that understanding with a player. But when she speaks, people definitely listen.
She can do whatever she wants, but I don’t think being a coach is going to be her high priority. But in the end, whatever she wanted to say, just from a competitive point of view, to be a better competitor, to me that would be worth its weight in gold for any player.
Technically that’s a whole different thing. You’ve gotta almost have a Ph.D. in biomechanics to under the technical part. A lot of people travel on the tour and are great game managers. Her words of wisdom on how to compete and how it feels like to be under pressure and how to handle the media and stuff, I think she’ll be a wizard.
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Lakshya Chopra
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