Serena Williams‘ former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, recently praised her resilience and resolve in winning the 2015 Roland Garros while sick.
Serena captured her third and final title at the clay-court Grand Slam, beating Czech lefty Lucie Safarova in the final. With the win, Serena moved within two majors of Steffi Graf’s Open Era record of 22 titles.
But on the eve of the wedding, the decorated American champion was struck with flu that was so bad that it nearly forced her to withdraw from the match. Mouratoglou, who was Serena’s coach at the time, shared the unpleasant experience that Williams went through during the fortnight.
She chose to play with illness and would always be bedridden when she was not playing a match. However, she went on to win the tournament, playing in five three-set matches, which is one of the most impressive achievements Mouratoglou has witnessed on a tennis court.
“With Serena [Williams], I have so many examples of incredible things she’s achieved, but one always stands out for me. It was during Roland Garros, she was very sick. She had 40° fever. She couldn’t even get out of her bed. She didn’t practise at all.”
“She didn’t leave the bed at all. She could not. She was just going from the bed to the tennis court to play her match at Roland Garros and then come back home. She won the tournament without being able to practise, warm-up for the match, or even walk.”
As a coach, Mouratoglou tried to act as her mentor and counselor during the two weeks and praised Williams’ will to win under such tough circumstances even though she hardly prepared for matches. He also credited the 42-year-old for changing his pre-conceived perception of reality.
“What Serena taught me, what people perceive as the reality, is just what they see. It’s not the reality. The reality is what you’re able to achieve. So a lot of times people will say, ‘This is impossible.’ This thing being impossible is not the reality. It’s their perception of what is the reality. And once Serena has done that, the reality becomes, ‘It is possible.”
