Who’s got the next serve? Serena Williams’ youngest daughter just might. The tennis pro has formally introduced her 14-month-old daughter Adira to the tennis court.
On Monday, Nov. 4, the 43-year-old mother of two shared an Instagram video of herself and the toddler as she showed the little one the ropes.
“When’s too early? @adiraohanian,” Williams joked in her caption.
Based on the video, 14 months might be too early. In the Reel, Adira picks up a tennis ball. After looking up at her mother and receiving directions to put it in the metal ball basket her mother is carrying, she instead takes off and tosses it at a fence.
According to Williams’ commentary in the video clip, her daughter had mastered where to put the ball before they broke out the camera.
“She was just doing it, man,” Williams said. “We turned on the camera, she don’t want to do it.”
While the 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion has brought yet another child into the world of tennis, the early tutelage is likely more about fitness and fun than actual training or career planning. Since beginning her motherhood journey in 2017 with the birth of her daughter Olympia, Williams has maintained that she has no plans to pressure her children into picking up the sport she has dominated since the mid-90s.
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As previously reported by theGrio, the Serena Ventures founder first introduced Olympia, now 7, to the court during the lockdowns in 2020 out of a necessity to keep the little one busy.
“Honestly, we started because it’s a socially safe sport, and when COVID happened, it was like: ‘We’re just in the house with a three-year-old, what do we do?’ There was only one answer, to my dismay,” she told People magazine at the time.
Since the lockdowns lifted, Olympia started lessons and has been on the court with her mama plenty of times, sometimes even in coordinated looks. Nevertheless, Williams has also admitted Olympia “doesn’t like tennis that much.”
“That’s a little disappointing for me, but she’s actually really good at it,” she told host Norah O’Donnell during an appearance on “Person to Person with Norah O’Donnell.”
She added, “So we are trying to figure out a way to get her to play a little bit.”
While speaking to O’Donnell, Williams had theorized that Olympia may enjoy the sport more if she had some buddies to play with. Now that Adira is in the mix, perhaps some family doubles matches are in their future.
