In a candid interview with The Office’s star Rainn Wilson on his podcast Soul Boom, Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou, dived into some never heard before stories from Serena Williams’s illustrious career.
“Serena, when I started with her, she was 2 years without winning a grand slam- she was struggling and actually she asked me to help her win at least one grand slam- she won 10 after that,” said Patrick Mouratoglou.
However, what stood out from his conversation with Rainn Wilson, was a particular anecdote that he shared about Serena Williams’s mentality and the backstory behind her winning the Roland Garros in 2015
“I was coaching her during Roland Garros 2015- the whole tournament she had 40 degrees fever, I mean Celsius sorry (I don’t know in Fahrenheit), but it’s the maximum you can have,” said Patrick. “So, she couldn’t leave the bed for the whole French Open, she stayed in bed- you had no idea she couldn’t even walk. Sometimes I used to ask her let’s walk outside for a while, but she couldn’t even move.”
“We did zero practice, zero warm up before the matches- so she was going straight from the bed to the stadium to play the match,” continued Patrick. “She lost every first set because she was dead. But then the rage, the refusal to lose came in and she won.”
Patrick Mouratoglou also revealed that Serena Williams used to lie down in the locker room after every match exhausted and drained, both physically and emotionally. The toll that those two weeks took on her and the ordeal she had to go through, pushed her right up to her limits.
“The other female tennis players told me that in the locker room, after every tennis match, she was laying down for at least one hour on the floor, crying because she gave more than what she had,” he said. “And she won the French open, which was impossible but she did it!”
Patrick Mouratoglou emphasized that this never-say-die attitude from Serena Williams separated her from the other world number ones and legends of the sport. No matter how many trophies she won, she never settled for less than a championship at any tournament. Serena’s grit and mentality have touched millions of people across all facets of life and she still remains a source of inspiration for the rising stars of the sport.
