Serena Williams’ former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, recalled “a few fights” with the tennis legend over her weight.
During an interview with The Guardian on Thursday, Mouratoglou explained that Williams — who revealed last month that she lost 31 pounds taking Ro, a GLP-1 drug used for weight loss — didn’t like when he told her that her weight was affecting her movement on the court.
“Oh I remember it very well,” Mouratoglou said when asked about Williams’ recent remarks on “Today” that he would tell her she needed to lose weight while playing. “It was after the pregnancy – not right after; I know these things take time. I told her: ‘Listen, this is not a comment on how you look. It’s not my problem.’
“But tennis is a sport in which you can’t afford to be overweight. First of all, the pressure on your joints and everything is so big that your chances become much higher. The second thing is it’s a sport in which you change directions all the time and with a lot of speed. Even one kilo overweight is a lot. When you go full speed in one direction with one kilo extra and then need to stop and come back, the time that you lose is really important. Just look at the best players in the world – [Carlos] Alcaraz, [Jannik] Sinner, [Novak] Djokovic. Think about their movement. The weight was affecting her movement.”
Williams said she turned to GLP-1s — short for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists — after she struggled to stay at a “healthy” weight following the births of her daughters, Olympia in 2017 and Adira in 2023.
“In Serena’s case, she was older – so of course the body is not going to bounce back the same as before, and the risk of injury is even bigger,” Mouratoglou said. “We had a few fights about it. I remember she did not like when I said that because she thought I was judging her. But I kept telling her, I don’t care about your look. It’s not my job. My job is your tennis. If you want to come back to the top and make history, then we have to be very efficient on every level – including this one, which for me was the key element.”
When asked, “So now that she’s lost all this weight, are you like, Well, I wish she had done this five, six years ago?” Mouratoglou said. “I’m not the type of guy who’s looking back and having regrets. But, yeah, if she would have been in this position physically, the results would have been better.”
Williams won 10 of her 23 grand slam singles titles after hiring Mouratoglou.
Ro’s website states the 43-year-old Williams — who is a paid spokesperson for the company — has lost 31 pounds in eight months.
Williams also shut down the stigma that using a GLP-1 is lazy or provides a shortcut.
Last June, the WYN Beauty founder shared in an Instagram post that she underwent a skin-tightening procedure.