Serena Williams teaches Olympia to play tennis with skills ‘grandpa taught me’

Serena Williams hit the tennis court this week with her daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. during which she served up lessons on the sport that included tips from Williams’ father, Richard Williams. 

In a series of short videos shared on her Instagram page, Serena and her daughter do some warm-up drills in the first clip. In the second, the tennis champion asks the toddler, “You want to play a fun game?” She then encourages Olympia to imagine the tennis balls are snacks as she practices her stroke.

In the third video, the proud mother shares some advice that her own father gave her when he was her tennis coach — check out all three clips below.

“You are so good at coaching that I might ask you for help for my own kids,” Serena’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou commented.

Richard Williams began coaching Venus and Serena when they were four years old. As reported by Heavy, he once revealed that he wrote a 78-page plan detailing their future. After Venus won her first Grand Slam title in 2000 at Wimbledon, her father took center stage when he began yelling “Straight Outta Compton!”.

In 1995, Richard famously interrupted a live interview with Venus and ABC News Day correspondent John McKenzie. The reporter asked the 14-year-old rising tennis star about her confidence facing an opponent and Venus replied,  “I know I can beat her… I’m very confident,” per the video on Twitter.

When Mckenzie pressed the teenager about her confidence, Richard stepped in. 

“You’ve got to understand you are dealing with the image of a 14-year-old child. This child is going to be out there playing when your old ass and me gonna be in the grave. You are dealing with a little black kid, and let her be a kid. She done answered it with a lot of confidence. Leave that alone,” Williams said per the video on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Serena Williams is set to star in a new docuseries for Amazon Studios, theGrio reported.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the sports legend is in the middle of filming a currently untitled show set to dive into her sports career and personal life. It reportedly is her first series in a first-look deal with the streamer for scripted and unscripted projects.

In an official statement, Williams shared her excitement on her Amazon Studios deal.

“I’m very excited to be partnering with Amazon Studios,” she said, praising their development of “some of the most inspiring and important content for a global audience.” She continued, “I have a lot of stories I’m eager to tell, including a continuation of my own, and I look forward to sharing those with the world.”

Jennifer Salke, head of Amazon Studios, gushed over Williams, saying, “Serena has transformed her sport and become one of the most inspiring athletes, entrepreneurs and women of her generation, admired not only for her unmatched prowess on the court but for her dedication to advocacy as well.”

Salke is “incredibly excited to share her journey in this new series,” she said, “and to work with her to create new original content for our Prime Video customers worldwide.”

Williams recently opened up about her marriage to entrepreneur Alexis Ohanian in a promotional video for Bumble, in which she shared, “Marriage is not bliss, but it can be if you work at it.” For her, she said, “a deal-breaker for me in a relationship is definitely loyalty. Well, not having it, that is.”

theGrio’s Jared Alexander contributed to this report.

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