Serena Williams’s former coach has opened up about the fights he used to have with the 23-time Grand Slam champion over her weight.
In an interview with The Guardian published Thursday, Patrick Mouratoglou reflected on Williams’s comments on Today where she explained that her coach said she needed to lose weight to be a better tennis player.
“Oh I remember it very well,” the coach told the publication, who helped Williams win 10 of her Grand Slam titles. “It was after the pregnancy – not right after; I know these things take time. I told her: ‘Listen, this is not a comment on how you look. It’s not my problem.’”
The now-retired tennis player shares two children with her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The couple has two daughters: Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., 8, and Adira Ohanian, 2. With the birth of both children, Williams had struggled to lose weight.
Her former coach continued: “But tennis is a sport in which you can’t afford to be overweight. First of all, the pressure on your joints and everything is so big that your chances [of injury] become much higher. The second thing is it’s a sport in which you change directions all the time and with a lot of speed. Even one kilo overweight is a lot.
“When you go full speed in one direction with one kilo extra and then need to stop and come back, the time that you lose is really important,” he continued. “Just look at the best players in the world – [Carlos] Alcaraz, [Jannik] Sinner, [Novak] Djokovic. Think about their movement. The weight was affecting her movement.”
Mouratoglou said that because of her age, it would be more difficult for Williams’s body to adjust to the way it was before her pregnancy.
“We had a few fights about it. I remember she did not like when I said that because she thought I was judging her,” he said. “But I kept telling her, I don’t care about your look. It’s not my job. My job is your tennis.”
Last month, Williams revealed she used a GLP-1 — medications like Ozempic and Wegovy that impact satiety — to help her achieve her weight loss goals and has since lost 31 pounds.
“I feel great,” she told the People at the time. “I feel really good and healthy. I feel light physically and light mentally.”
She also acknowledged the controversy surrounding the use of GLP-1s, but remained adamant that the medication added to her healthy eating and workout routines.
“I just can do more. I’m more active,” Williams said of shedding the weight. “My joints don’t hurt as much. I just feel like something as simple as just getting down is a lot easier for me. And I do it a lot faster.”
Mouratoglou was asked by The Guardian if he wished Williams had started taking a GLP-1 medication years ago. He responded, “I’m not the type of guy who’s looking back and having regrets. But, yeah, if she would have been in this position physically, the results would have been better.”
