French tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou is often seen taking pride in helping Serena Williams reach her full potential. Keeping in line with that, he shared a video on his Instagram account, depicting an exercise he used to do when training the American.
Sharing a tip on how to develop consistency in rallies and stretching them long, Mouratoglou shared a ‘stupid’ yet interesting exercise. He asked one of his pupils to keep one ball and hit it continuously without a miss or mistake and further revealed that he used to carry out this same exercise with Serena, sometimes for as long as 45 minutes.
“This is the most stupid exercise, but the best exercise in the world. Every practice, you take one ball, zero miss. At a speed, a pace that you really control, and you keep the ball,” said the French coach while explaining the exercise.
“You have to learn to be consistent. The top players, they don’t miss. Watch a match and you count how many balls are in the net, the whole match. You will be surprised. So let’s go back to the basics.”
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Mouratoglou and Williams trained together for almost 10 years, as their coaching-student relationship started in 2012 and came to an end in 2022, the year in which she announced her retirement. The legendary coach has spoken about his relationship with the 23-time grand slam champion on various occasions.
Earlier, during a conversation with Costa Navarino Stories, Mouratoglou had discussed how he shared a great ‘bond’ with Serena, which was also the foundation of the success they achieved together.
“With Serena, it was on another level. You can’t always decide that; it’s just how it is with some people. Our mutual trust and connection were strong, and together, we achieved incredible things, like multiple Grand Slams,” the coach said.
When the two started working together, Williams had a total of 13 grand slams in her trophy cabinet. After finding herself the new coach, the American went on to win 10 more titles between 2012 and 2017. She also reached the final of the US Open and Wimbledon consecutively in 2018 and 2019. However, she couldn’t convert them and failed to add four more grand slam titles to her tally.
