Serena and Venus Williams open up about the misconceptions of their father's coaching style

Tennis champs and beloved sisters Venus and Serena Williams open up in the March issue of Harper’s Bazaar about what it’s like in their tight-knit family. The sisters, whose family is depicted in the Oscar-nominated film King Richard starring Will Smith, have a lot to say when it comes to misconceptions about their father’s management style. “This isn’t a movie about tennis,” Serena tells Tressie McMillan Cottom for the cover story, “This is a movie about family.”

“A lot of people get this different story of sports fathers—especially tennis fathers, who are really overbearing. And that wasn’t necessarily my dad,” she explains to the outlet. “Everyone’s like, ‘Well, how do you play tennis for so long?’ It’s because we weren’t raised in an environment where it was something that we abhorred.”

Serena says Richard’s care for his daughters meant that he would insist they rest if injured – resulting in the sisters often refraining from admitting they were hurt.. “He’s always like, ‘Take your time. You’ll be okay. Don’t play,’” she admits. “My dad always told us to plan ahead,” she continues. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. We never planned to just only play tennis and just only be tennis players. We planned to do more.” “I’m an unbelievable planner,” Venus chimes in. “I usually plan the health retreats."

Together, the famous sisters have 48 Grand Slam titles (including 14 shared women’s doubles titles), several fashion lines, a venture-capital firm, and an interior-design company. They also serve as executive producers on King Richard – that’s one helluva resume for the high achievers.

Last week, during the Academy Award nomination announcement, King Richard received five nods, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Will Smith), Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing.

With such high praise from the Academy, Serena likens the film to a superhero movie. “I am a dreamer, and I love Marvel,” she says. “I think King Richard is like Iron Man and that there still are other stories around it. The next, obviously, would be the Venus story, and then there’s always the story about our other three sisters, and then there’s like a mom, and then there’s the Serena story. When I look at it, I see it just encompassing this whole superhero kind of thing.”

Serena also made sure to show the film to her young daughter Olympia so that she might get to know some family members that have passed on. Their eldest sister Yetunde, their mother’s daughter from a previous marriage was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Compton in 2003, and her portrayal was something that was important for the sisters, if difficult to watch.

“We made sure to take out the stuff that was not kid friendly,” Serena says when mentioning she showed it to Olympia, adding “it was really more about her saying to me, ‘Tunde.’ She never met my eldest sister. She says she understands that Tunde isn’t around. That was interesting for me in a sad way, but she at least knows her a little bit better.”

Growing up in Compton, the neighbourhood in Los Angeles that is the subject of many songs focussing on the violence on the streets, gangs, and disenfranchisement, writer McMillan Cottom shares in the piece how the image of Serena and Venus in the 90s in the white-male dominated sport felt like a revolution.

“They were Black. They were working-class. They were dark complexioned. And they had those beaded cornrows,” she writes impassionedly. “They were Black like how I was Black. That is why Venus and Serena smiling from a clay court felt more revolutionary than Tiger Woods would seem on the golf green [...].”

The cover story is also a treatise on manifesting one’s own destiny after two decades in the spotlight. Venus hypothesizes that once they retire from tennis, they may or may not become bodybuilders just for the heck of it.

“Serena and I say we’re going to become body builders after tennis. It might be extreme. It might not happen exactly like that, but you never know,” she jokes. “From such a young age, all we’ve done is work,” she adds. “So I think for Serena and I to explore that freedom is surreal. We’ve never been free.”

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