Latest / Bleacher Report / Venus Williams Talks Roland-Garros, Players to Watch & Her Matches vs. Serena

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Venus Williams Talks Roland-Garros, Players to Watch & Her Matches vs. Serena · Bleacher Report

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: What do you know? We're here in Paris?
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: Can I get to love for Venus Williams.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Playing seven SA ghost titles, sixteen doubles titles, four Olympic
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: gold medals. Welcome to the team. Venus Williams is here
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in the building. You start at your first ever slam
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: here at sixteen years.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, what does this place mean you? What is
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: it like to be back? It was my first international trip.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, and I played on a court that doesn't
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: exist anymore. It used to be with the bullpen.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It was right here.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: It used to be right here, Yes, right here?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, we literally put the studio here just to
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: make you feel at home.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, you know, memories here. But this is
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: very very special. One of my first doubles major here
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: to Isena back in the nineties. I'm taking it too
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: far back, but it's good to be here in good
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: company with Sam, with Caroline. We were in the back gossiping.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it's good to be What were you gossiping about?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Well, that's why gossip She says, you need to stop gossiping.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: So I'm trying to slow it down.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: You guys have known each other for a very.
• 1:01
  Speaker 4: Long time, long time Venus. Actually we played an exhibition.
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: I was junior and I played. I got put together
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: with Venus, and I was so nervous, and I must
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: have left the decent impression because we played in a
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: tournament in Dohat together after that, and that's how I
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: met your sister.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: She's like, who's this little girl? Exactly? We played doubles, well,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: only people that I've played that trusted to play doubles
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: with besides Serena. So I wish we could have kept
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: that going. Has Serena blocked it?
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: I know, because you knew maybe I knew that, but
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: you know, another conversation with her already about it.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: They still have some of those legends doubles events, you know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: wimbled in here. Maybe you guys can get back together.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: There's no way Serena.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Will allow this.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, we would still be serving
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: pretty big. We got to wait like twenty years.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, valid, Yeah.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: You talked about a bunch of the current players there. Yeah,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of the Americans in action, especially we're going
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to see Cocoa Golf tomorrow. Who has caught your eye?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Who impresses you?
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Who are you rooting? For the funny thing is that
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: anything in hand out there, that's why they play the match,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: and especially on the clay. And we were just talking
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: about the conditions we played under where it would get dark.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Now they have all the lights out here, so you
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: can keep playing until infinity. But it's hard on the body,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and the core can get heavy. All these things can happen,
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: so you don't know who's gonna win. Of course, big
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: fan of the Americans. I always watch the Americans, always
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: rooting for them. Coco, I'm a huge fan. I love
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: her passion, I think so sometimes though she's just too
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: hard on herself. I think she's got to just let
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: go and allow herself to do what she can do.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: And she has such big expectations of ourselves. So I'd
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: love to see her win here. She's come close, right,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I came close too. Coming close is not the goal.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: I know she wants to win. And then you know
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: there's other players like Fritz. He expects himself to do
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: well in the clay. He's like to be a top player.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: I've got to do well on the clay too, that's
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: a big expectation. Yeah, yeah, tough loss matter.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: He's in action a bunch of good ones.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: But when you're walking around the grounds, if you see
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: Cocoa or Madison, you give him any advice, you know, hey,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: how they get the title.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I was always playing against them, so I never got
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a chance to really give them that much advice. They
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: were playing so well. I lost to both of them.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: So it's not easy to be in that position where
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: your mentor and you're playing against someone. But these girls
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: know what they're doing. They Madison iss of all the time.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: How exciting was it when she won the Australian Open
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: this show, I was like my heart so I was
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: so happy for her and she could do it again.
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: And I think talking about tough competition. One of the
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: best players of all time, the best player of all time,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: your sister you won and are one of the best
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: players of all time, winning seven Grand Slams, doing so
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: much for the sports, so many finals, but a lot
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: of these finals you have to play your sister. What
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: is it like for you to not only player sister,
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: but also playing someone that you knew when she's playing
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: her best tenter So, I mean.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: It's so tough to be Yeah, we were just saying,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: like you hope Serena didn't play well, right, Like, in
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: order to win, she had to play not her best,
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: You had to play your best. And it was hard
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: to walk out in the court knowing that. And then
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: of course there's a sister factor, right, that's my sister's,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: my baby sister. I want her to win too, So
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: the celebration wasn't like. It didn't feel like a celebration.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: When I would beat her and I lost a lot too,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: it still felt like a loss, but the celebration didn't
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: feel like that. I don't care.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: Sorry, I don't know if it felt like that to you,
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: But I never wanted to anger her on court because
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I knew if I angered her, you were done.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: You don't do that. Now, you don't wake the beast.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: You're just like you know, you don't want to make
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: hulk angry. They don't do that. She was the hulk.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: You know. You just kept her sedated and hopefully she
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: would just beat you, not beat you like ten times
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: in a row if you made her anger.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Oh I no, last night we had a celebration Rafa nadal.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Everything went to this sport. We had federer out there,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: We had no vaccum. Of course, had Andy Murray. I
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: mean you were around the same time. You experienced so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: much to see his journey, to see that celebration, what
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: was that.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Like for you? I mean, first of all, kudos to
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: those guys were coming out. They've got busy schedules, families.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: So cool to see all four of those guys together.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: They changed tennis, and I don't know if there'll be
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: anything quite like it. I hope so with this next generation.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: But Rafa deserves like all that. He deserves a celebration
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: every year for the thirteen years he won was at thirteen, fourteen, fourteen.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: He needs fourteen years of celebrating.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: One hundred and twelve and four.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: That's an insant role A. You can't make this up. No, no, no, no,
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: you can't make it up.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: It almost felt like we should have stopped playing all
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: courts for about thirty minutes during the celebration last night, right.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: Moment of silence or a moment of sangria or something,
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: you know, like there should have been tapas all around here.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I was waiting for the flyover.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't get it. We were all very excited
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: when we heard you were joining the team. I'm curious,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: why are you excited to be on this side of
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the count.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Listen, I'm really nervous, are you No, I'm like, am
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I going to cancel myself by saying something crazy? Everybody's like,
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: be yourself. I'm trying. It's interesting to be on this side,
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: right because when you come as a player, your mind's
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: already on the match. You're even thinking about this interview.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: You kind of get through it. But as a broadcaster,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: you know, journalist, you want to do your best. Hopefully
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: people watch and hopefully the fans get some sort of
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: insight to what it's like to be a player or
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: what it's like to to to be out there.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: We have two weeks left of Roland Garris before we
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: crown a king and Queen Venus is going to be
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: along for the ride, and we are so honored to
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: have you here. Can I get some more of love
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: for Venus Williams, please
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: One of us ever join