Serena Williams has done it all in tennis, but there’s so much more to come. In this week’s issue of “Sports Illustrated” magazine, the world’s #1 player reflects on her career and discusses her new book “Born to Lose,” from which this photo was taken.
Sports Illustrated: What’s next for you on the tennis tour?
Serena Williams: The tour is my favorite place to play. The tour is also where I’ve learned the most about myself. In my first year, my coach asked what I’m most passionate about. Before I could answer, he said “that’s your weakness.” You can be passionate about tennis or something else, just because it’s fun. And I’ve never been more passionate about anything than I am about tennis.
What is your weakest point as a player?
I’m not that talented. I’m not the world’s best tennis player, but I have something that most people don’t have. That is, I’m a great teacher. That is something I’ll always be.
This is a photo of you in a photo shoot, and you’re with the “Sports Illustrated” magazine. Has that ever been in your career?
No. My career hasn’t really been a photo shoot.
How did you choose “Born to Lose”? Because I don’t know how I ended up with it! I didn’t know I was going to choose a book till the day I signed my contract for it. I think in the contract it says “If you’re not reading the book, you’re not reading the right book.” So I went down and bought the book for $6. In other words, I didn’t have to read it and I didn’t want to. But the contract said if I didn’t want to read it, I wasn’t signing it. So I bought it so I could sign it. And then we went and have a photo shoot and the magazine saw all the wonderful things in the book but still wanted to use the photo for the cover and the cover photo, they took the photo with me. You know, the cover and cover photo is not the book. The book is the cover and cover photo. Everything else, the writing is there.
This past week you had been involved in a match where you got an important piece of mail, which said I miss you. What was that like?
Thank you for that letter.