One interesting tidbit in the
New York Times Sunday magazine cover story ("
Venus and Serena Against The World") written by John Jeremiah Sullivan on
The Williams Sisters that was published the day before
the 2012 US Open started three weeks ago was the tidbit that Serena spends a fair amount of time in Paris and speaks passable French.
Now comes word that Serena
may be practicing more than her French and groundstrokes with her "part-time coach"
Patrick Mouratouglou, who was in her player's box when
Serena won a thrilling 3-set final against Victoria Azarenka last Sunday to claim her 4th US Open crown and 15th major.
Chris Chase Jonathan Wall of
Yahoo! Sports Busted Racquet blog re-posted the above picture (and others) from a French gossip website which shows Serena and Mouratouglou
to be closer than one would expect for a typical player-coach relationship. I don't think we'll
ever see pictures of Azarenka with Sam Sumac or
Maria Sharapova with Thomas Hogstedt.
Mouratouglou is 42 years old (Serena turns 31 on September 26th) and runs a tennis academy in Paris.
Practicing together most of the time, taking advices from him, talking to him more often, it is not a surprise that Serena will be
ReplyDeletefalling for her coach, Patrick. Sometimes, familiarity is the key. I just hope this does not affect her overall performance as an athlete.