Newly Appointed Coach Reveals How Venus and Serena Williams Still Have the Burning Desire to Pursue Glory

Venus and Serena Williams are one of the most iconic players of this generation. They have records that will go down in the history of tennis. However, the Williams sisters, after facing a rough patch in 2021, incurred similar injuries and stepped out of the circuit. The injuries, in turn, took a professional year from them and resulted in rumors of retirement.

Even so, Serena and Venus made a comeback in this year’s grass swing. Though things were not really the same for the athletes. Amongst the many major changes, Serena Williams also got pushed to change her coach. She sided with Venus’s coach Eric Hechtman after breaking off with her coach for almost 10 years. Here’s what Hechtman said about partnering with the legends.

Training both Venus and Serena Williams

Earlier, before starting his run alongside Serena in Wimbledon, coach Eric sat down for an interview session and spoke about training the duo. At that time, there were clouds around Venus’ entry in the grass courts of London. Therefore, when asked if he would be willing to put in extra hours to train both of them. He said, “If they are both good with it, I’m absolutely good with it…They are family. They are super close with each other. It’s been great so far.”  

“They both love the game. They are both champions. They both love working hard and putting in the work. So, as long as you’ve got that, who’s to say you can set parameters on things, right?” He added. Hechtman is a club professional from Miami and has been training the seven-time Grand Slam champion since 2019.

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Further, he joined Serena’s campaign as her coach Patrick Mouratoglou decided to join hands with the Romanian two-times Grand Slam champion Simona Halep.

How was the duo’s comeback?

Starting with Serena Williams. The 23 times Grand Slam champion after giving a decent performance in the doubles of the Eastbourne-based WTA 500 event entered the grass majors. However, risking her protected ranking for the eighth Wimbledon trophy didn’t pan out the way Williams expected. She faced a first-round defeat against the young French blood, Harmony Tan, and walked out of the ranking for the first time in 25 years.

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Speaking of Venus Williams, she surprised her fans by enlisting her name in the mixed doubles category of Wimbledon. Though like her sister, she also couldn’t execute a noteworthy run and incurred defeat in the second match only.