Serena Williams, appearing on Monday’s edition of Ellen, opens up about how she’s guiding her six-year-old daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. to play tennis – but not too aggressively.
‘I love her so much,’ the 42-year-old tennis icon said of her child with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, 40, after which she was asked by Ellen DeGeneres how Olympia is at tennis.
Olympia has shown potential, Williams said, but will need more work in honing her skills ‘if she wants to play tennis.’
The latest: Serena Williams appearing on Monday’s edition of Ellen, opened up about how she’s guiding her six-year-old daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr. to play tennis – but not too aggressively
She continued: ‘But I don’t push her, I don’t push her because she’s six … she’s alright, I’ve seen six-year-olds that might take her out’ on the court.
Williams said that Olympia’s ‘ambition is playing princess games, [as] she loves princess games and the more we can play anything with princesses, that’s her whole life.’
Williams told DeGeneres that she recently hired a tennis coach for Olympia, but did not reveal who she was to the coach.
‘This is such a funny story, because … I don’t have the patience to teach tennis, it’s so weird but I don’t really like to play with people who don’t know how to play tennis well – so it drives me nuts – so I was like, “I can’t I don’t have the patience for this,”‘ she said. ‘So I signed her up for a class, a private teacher, so she came in, I didn’t wanna tell her.’
Williams said that Olympia has shown potential, but will need more work in honing her skills ‘if she wants to play tennis’
Williams said that Olympia’s ‘ambition is playing princess games, [as] she loves princess games and the more we can play anything with princesses that’s her whole life’
The iconic tennis star on Monday makes her final appearance on Ellen, which wraps up later this month
Williams said that she revealed that on her Instagram account – which has more than 17.1 million followers – that she had signed up her daughter for a tennis class, and that the coach was one of her followers, and figured out that she was in the running for the job.
Williams told DeGeneres that she recently hired a tennis coach for Olympia, but did not reveal who she was to the coach
The Compton, California, native credited her father Richard Williams, 80, for his tutelage in making she and her sister Venus, 41, standouts in the sport, saying it makes him ‘so amazing because [she] couldn’t have done that’