On people debating whether or not she should be considered the best athlete of her time:
“If I were a man, then it wouldn’t be any sort of question.”
On finding out she was pregnant a week before the Australian Open:
“I put [the test] down. I went back to finishing hair and makeup, was laughing, talking. I was getting the styling done. An hour and a half later, I went back to the bathroom and I totally forgot about it because it was impossible for me. . . . So I went back to get dressed and I went back in the bathroom and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, that test.’ [I] did a double take and my heart dropped. Like literally it dropped. 'Oh my God, this can’t be—I’ve got to play a tournament.' How am I going to play the Australian Open? I had planned on winning Wimbledon this year.”
On needing more proof the she was really pregnant:
(Test No. 2: Positive. Test No. 3: Positive. Test No. 4: Positive. Test No. 5: Positive. Test No. 6: Positive.)
How Serena met (now fiancé) Alexis by chance in Rome in 2015:
“This big guy comes and he just plops down at the table next to us, and I’m like, ‘Huh! All these tables and he’s sitting here?,’ ” Serena remembered. Alexis recalled that the pool area was “not quite so empty.”
Then came the quintessential Australian accent of Zane Haupt. “Aye, mate! There’s a rat. There’s a rat by your table. You don’t want to sit there.”
Serena started laughing.
“We were trying to get him to move and get out of there,” said Serena. “He kind of refuses and he looks at us. And he’s like, ‘Is there really a rat here?’ ” At which point Serena remembers the first words she ever said to him.
Serena: “No, we just don’t want you sitting there. We’re going to use that table.”
Alexis: “I’m from Brooklyn. I see rats all the time.”
Serena: “Oh, you’re not afraid of rats?”
Alexis: “No.”
Which is when Serena suggested a compromise and invited Alexis to join them.
Read the full interview at Vanity Fair:
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