Achieving important results from a young age in the world of sport can have a strong impact on the growth of athletes who find themselves catapulted into a world bigger than themselves overnight.
This is what happened to Serena Williams, considered by many to be the best player of all time. The American “risked” playing her first official match on the major circuit at the age of 14, but the WTA stopped everything by preventing the Oakland tournament from assigning her a wild card so as not to add further weight to a predestined path already hard in itself.
Serena Williams soon learned to build a sort of internal armor to try to manage pressure in the best way and managed to win 73 singles titles, including 23 Slams.
Serena Williams: “I’m trying to understand who I really am after 27 years of career”
The American, in an interview with ET, explained that she has always lived in the spotlight and that only now is she trying to understand who is truly far from the pitch.
“I was so intense on the pitch, I always wanted to be perfect, which obviously isn’t possible. If I could go back, I would tell myself to breathe deeply and relax more. I think it would have helped me a lot.
The journey has been incredible, but I was really very young when I started playing tennis on the major circuit and became a professional player. I don’t know if this precociousness changed me or shaped me as a person,” Williams said.
“Now I’m trying to figure out who I really am away from the cameras. I’ve been in the spotlight 24/7 for 27 years. It’s different now, but it’s time to understand how all this has affected me myself.
Most people only see the victories in a Grand Slam tournament, the finals, but they don’t focus on the training and everything behind it. All that intensity that I have always shown is now directed at my daughters.”
