Serena Williams revealed some precious advice that she received from her 5-year-old daughter, Olympia, after losing her recent tennis match.
The 41-year-old tennis icon shared this sweet moment while doing a September 28 appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”
“‘It’s OK, mama. You just have to do what you feel,'” Williams remembered of her 5-year-old daughter’s reaction to her mom’s loss. “I literally wanted to cry. It was like, ‘Do what you feel, do what your heart tells you.’ It was the sweetest thing ever and I was so proud of her.”
Serena and her husband and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, are Olympia’s parents. The tennis star said that she used to feel uncomfortable when her daughter attended her matches.
“Well, I just was afraid I would get distracted because I would be like, ‘Wait, is she drinking? Is she doing this?’ So she came to a match once, like super brief, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, is she wearing sun cream?’ It’s nuts,” Williams told Barrymore.
“And so, I would get stressed out and I’m thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, wait a minute, I’ve gotta serve. This makes no sense,'” she added. “So yeah, and I’ve never really had her at matches until this summer actually.”
Serena played at the U.S. Open this summer and won against two opponents before losing in the third round to Australian Ajla Tomljanovic on September 2. That match was most likely the end of her amazing solo tennis career.
“Apparently (Olympia) was saying, ‘Go mama, I’m so proud of you’ and I was like, ‘What?!’” Williams told Barrymore.
Williams’ daughter began taking tennis lessons at age 3. But Serena does not want to coach her daughter.
“I don’t really like to play with people who don’t know how to play tennis well. It drives me nuts,” Williams told Ellen DeGeneres in April 2022. “So, I was like, ‘I can’t. I don’t have the patience for this,'” the star said, adding, “So I signed her up for a class, a private teacher.”
Sept 26 marked Serena Williams’ birthday — here are some cute moments alongside daughter Olympia as the tennis legend transitions to life off the court ♥️ pic.twitter.com/AeCTzNUU0I
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 27, 2022
