Serena Williams discusses the influence her coach of nearly one year, France’s Patrick Mouratoglou, has had on her. Williams, who has taken some difficult, emotional losses in Paris and has been booed on occasion, said that while they have not talked specifically about how to approach the environment of Roland Garros, he did give her one key piece of advice.
“We just focus on our game and what to do on the court and things like that,” she said. “It was interesting. I was playing a French girl the other day, and I said, ‘Well, the crowd is going to be against me.’ He said, ‘They’re not going to be against you; they’re going to be for her.’ I thought that was an interesting way of looking at it.”
Serena also says she and Mouratoglou have a positive, give-and-take relationship.
“He loves tennis almost too much,” she said. “It’s kind of crazy. So he really knows the game really well. But it’s been great, because sometimes he’ll say things, and I’ll say, ‘I don’t agree with that.’ He’s like, ‘Okay.’ Some things I don’t agree with, but most things I do. We kind of feed off each other, and I think we both have a great knowledge of the game. I think it works well because of that relationship like that.”