Longtime coach to tennis phenomenon Serena Williams disclosed he isn’t expecting her to make a “serious comeback” to the sport.
Patrick Mouratoglou told Eurosport in an interview that while he would love to see her compete at “her best level,” he doesn’t see her peaking much further unless she gives it her “absolute all.”
“Do I want to see her play? I want to see her play again,” Mouratoglou said. He further indicated that “playing at her best is something that every tennis fan really wants to see.”
Mouratoglou, who joined Williams’ team in 2012 is now setting his hopes on Holger Rune, who he currently works with and who recently graduated from his Academy.
“I think to be exceptional at something, and God knows she’s been exceptional, you have to be a little bit obsessive about it,” he said, adding that “you have to be 100% focused on the activity, otherwise even for tennis geniuses, it’s complicated.”
He continued: “Williams will be kept far too busy away from the court to ever seriously contemplate a proper return.”
The 52-year-old coach said that since giving birth to her daughter, he feels that the last leg of her career may soon be forgotten.
“I think if she’s happy at the end of her career, that’s all that matters because nobody will remember the end of her career. You remember it now because it’s fresh, but everyone will remember what a champion she was, all the Grand Slams she won, the things she brought to tennis and how she made history. The end of her career is an anecdote.”
Williams’ clinched the top spot of the 2017 Grand Slam while pregnant with her first-born named Alexis. That same year, she beat her sister Venus in the Major final for the Austrialain Open. At the time, it was her eighth in ten meetings on the Grand Slam stage.
She returned to to the championship match in 2018 and 2019 during both editions of the Wimbledon and US Open but lost in both matches.
