Serena Williams admits: "I sabotaged my father's training sessions"

Jules Hypolite

le 01/10/2025 à 22h12

2 min to read

Williams

The queen with 23 Grand Slams made an unexpected confession: as a child, she would cut the strings of her rackets to escape the sessions imposed by her father Richard Williams. A memory that says a lot about her journey.

Serena and Venus Williams started playing at a very young age, under the guidance of their father Richard, who had developed a plan for them to become professional tennis players.

The frequent training sessions were hard for Serena to handle. The American champion admitted to having sabotaged her father's plans several times to avoid going to practice:

"Remember (addressing her sister Venus), I used to cut the racket strings because I didn't want to train. I remember we would take a long car ride, to Anaheim or something like that. I wasn't feeling well.

I took scissors and cut the strings. When we arrived, Dad took out the rackets and all the strings were broken. I remember his face at that moment, he was so sad. I felt bad and I never did it again.

[...] I think we were training too much, it wasn't necessary to train that much. I hated training. I would sabotage things, I was happy if the car broke down and I even prayed for rain.

But in hindsight, we needed every second of training. To be the best, you have to put in the time and be willing to work harder than anyone else. I think that training motivated me later on.

From the moment I turned professional, I never missed a training session. I always try to tell Olympia (her first daughter): 'You don't understand the benefits of this now, it's something painful, but tomorrow you'll be glad you did it.'"