Serena Williams revealed in an interview that her 5-year-old daughter Olympia doesn’t like to play tennis—and how she’s encouraging her to pick up the racket
If your mom was the greatest tennis player of all time, would you want to follow in her footsteps and take up the sport? I mean, imagine the pressure. That’s why it’s so dang relatable that Serena Williams just revealed how her daughter isn’t really into tennis—not that that’s stopping the GOAT from encouraging her mini-me to share in her love of the sport.
During an appearance on CBS News’ Person to Person with Norah O’Donnell this week, Williams told host Norah O’Donnell that her 5-year-old daughter Olympia “doesn’t actually like to play tennis too much.”
Williams continued, “That’s a little disappointing for me, but she’s actually really good at it. So we are trying to figure out a way to get her to play a little bit.”
Williams revealed that she’s not above using some creative tactics to try to encourage Olympia to take to the court.
“Maybe I can push her into tennis by getting other kids to have a group lesson, I think that’s what I’m gonna do,” she said.
While Williams could maaaaybe let her daughter be her own person, it’s also pretty adorable that she wants to share this passion with her mini-me. Olympia is only 5, so she has plenty of time to find her own hobbies (and suck it up and play some tennis to make her mom happy, if that’s what she chooses to do).
In 2021, Williams opened up to People magazine about signing Olympia up for her first tennis lessons.
“Honestly, we started because it’s a socially safe sport, and when COVID happened, it was like, we’re just in the house with a 3-year-old, what do we do?” Williams said at the time. “There was only one answer, to my dismay.”
Williams joked that the experience made her go into “tennis mom” mode, and that the instructor “has no idea that it’s my daughter, so we’ll see how that goes.”
She added, “I’m not a pushy mom, but I know how I like techniques, I want to make sure she’s good at teaching Olympia some techniques.”
Well, if an instructor doesn’t teach the right techniques, we think we know how Olympia can fill in the gaps.
