Serena Williams said she and her “little buddy” love spending time together off the court
Serena Williams revealed how her daughter Olympia is feeling about tennis lately.
Speaking on “A Conversation with Champions” panel ahead of the U.S. Open at the Lotte New York Palace hotel in New York City, the 40-year-old tennis legend said that she and her 4 ½-year-old daughter share all the same interests – except the court.
“She’s my little buddy,” Williams said at the forum hosted by Sheinelle Jones and Dylan Dreyer of the Today show. “We do everything together. We go on dates and it’s so cool because she likes everything I do except for tennis.
“She’s really fun. I see a lot of my personality in her and it’s just a great time to have her around now to see what I do on a daily,” Williams continued of her little one, whom she shares with husband Alexis Ohanian.
It’s not the first time that the 23-time Grand Slam champion, who was pregnant with Olympia when she won the 2017 Australian Open, has described her daughter as less than impressed by tennis.
“She likes tennis, but I don’t know. Honestly, she likes playing piano,” Williams said while appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live last September. “When she was in my belly, I played a lot of piano music.”
Around the same time, the mom posted an adorable TikTok of Olympia guiding her on the keys, and even singing a few notes.
“Olympia is a boss,” she captioned the video.
Thursday’s forum also featured Serena’s sister Venus Williams, and Naomi Osaka, Rafael Nadal and Nick Kyrgios ahead of the U.S. Open. The tournament is set for August 29 through September 11 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York.
There, Serena will try to win a history-making 24th Grand Slam, before beginning an “evolution” away from tennis, she announced on the September cover of Vogue earlier this month.
At the “Conversation with Champions” panel, Serena revisited her definition of what her “evolution” means.
“It’s more like an evolution of Serena,” she explained. “So for me, I feel like a lot of people could relate to that. Sometimes you just have a platform to just talk about what a lot of people can’t really put into words or really talk about. Yeah, it’s just an evolution.
“I’m excited about the new things that I’ve been doing and I’m continuing to do,” she added.
And while the star is set to meet Danka Kovinić, from Montenegro, in the first round Monday, she’s also looking ahead to future successes off the court.
In her Vogue essay, Serena said that she has been “reluctant to admit” to herself or the people around her that “I have to move on from playing tennis.” But the founder of investment firm Serena Ventures said that she wants to refocus her attention elsewhere, and she and her husband hope to have another child.
“I have never liked the word retirement,” she wrote. “It doesn’t feel like a modern word to me. I’ve been thinking of this as a transition, but I want to be sensitive about how I use that word, which means something very specific and important to a community of people. Maybe the best word to describe what I’m up to is evolution.”
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