Serena Williams admitted that her daughter was a big influence in pushing her and Venus Williams to play doubles at Wimbledon this year.
The American was speaking after her first round doubles exit in Berlin as she partnered Karolina Muchova with the duo losing to Giuliana Olmos and Erin Routliffe 6-4 6-4.
Earlier in the day Coco Gauff admitted she was never asked to play doubles with Serena so far.
However Serena admitted she needed to do more research but was happy with her pick to partner with Muchova as she admired the former Roland Garros finalist’s style of play, “I would really love to play with Coco [Gauff], she was on my list of people that I wanted to play with. I should have done better research on who was on the charts,” Williams told the WTA website.
“She’s so focused on singles nowadays, you never really know if [players] are playing doubles. I guess I should have asked her though. Karolina is such a great player. She’s such a beautiful player. She’s someone that I love to watch.“
Serena’s next focus will be Wimbledon where she has a doubles wildcard with her sister Venus Williams.
The reasoning behind the partnership came from her eight year-old daughter Olympia who wanted to see the doubles pairing at some point down the line, “Well, I think it’s going to be fun,” Williams said about the partnership.
“My daughter Olympia told me that I should play with Venus. She’s always right. She’s like ‘Mom you should play with Venus’. She’s very serious, she’s very smart. She’s very wise. I said ‘OK Olympia, we’ll see if we can do it.”
Meanwhile as for Serena’s comeback in general there were a lot of interesting stories in the world of sport that motivated Williams, “I was really motivated by what Venus was doing at US Open, I thought she played really well. Quarterfinals in doubles, I thought was really interesting,” Williams explained to the WTA website.
“At the time, she was always telling me I should play. I felt a lot of pressure, but I wasn’t practicing at all. That wasn’t my goal at the time [to come back], but I said if I ever change my mind, it will take six months to get off. I was like ‘Sure I’ll get on’ but that doesn’t mean anything, I just had no intention of being here today to be perfectly honest with you.
“Watching Lindsey [Vonn] and everyone do so well, all these women as you mentioned coming back being so Gosh darn good, I just felt ‘why not? A least for a little bit — this is not obviously forever. It’s not sustainable for me. I did feel motivated after the Olympics.”
As it stands Serena will only be playing doubles at Wimbledon but there are still two wildcard spots left in the singles.
The 23-time Grand Slam singles champion had a playful exchange with a journalist as she didn’t rule out playing the singles at SW19, “Oh my Gosh, there’s some left? Would you be interested if I took it? You think I’m ready for singles,” Williams laughed.
Serena is a seven-time singles champion and a six-time doubles champion at Wimbledon.
Wimbledon begins on Monday 29th of June.
