Imagine being a youth tennis instructor and heading out to your first lesson with a new player. You think to yourself, “It’s a 3-year-old. This should be easy,” as you make your way to the court. You know the young girl’s name but not much else.
But then you see your new pupil walking toward you with her mom — in her best “tennis mom outfit” — on a warm Florida fall day and it hits you. Your new student is Olympia Ohanian, the daughter of Serena Williams.
Yes, THAT Serena Williams. You know, the greatest tennis player of all time and winner of 23 major singles titles.
And that is exactly what happened to an unsuspecting tennis coach on Friday. Williams posted about signing Olympia up for tennis lessons on her Instagram story and mentioned the teacher had no idea who Olympia’s mom was going into it. One can only imagine all of the feelings going on for that person today. No pressure, right?
Williams tried to get Olympia ready for the lesson by showing her some footage of her own match against Maria Sakkari at the US Open last month. Because she’s 3, or perhaps because she watched the match live, Olympia wasn’t exactly interested in that or her mom’s commentary about speed or stances. Not to mention, she’s already an Australian Open champion so she really doesn’t need to waste her time watching tape.
Olympia was already showing glimpses of her potential on the court earlier this summer with her mom, but now that she’s making it official with some lessons, it is pretty much game over for all other tennis players of the 5-and-under variety.
