CHAMP MA
Serena got preg news, then won Aussie title
IT TOOK six pregnancy tests to finally convince Serena Williams that she was really going to have a baby.
The tennis superstar — who showed off her baby bump in a glamorous nude cover shoot for Vanity Fair — didn’t think there was a chance she was actually pregnant when she began feeling different while practicing in January for the Australian Open. The 35-year-old, who is engaged to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, had thrown up while hitting tennis balls one morning — prompting her friend Jessica Steindorff to suggest she take a pregnancy test. Two days later, Williams agreed. “I’ll take it just because (a) to prove you wrong and (b) because it’s fun, whatever,” she recounted for Vanity Fair, whose cover calls to mind the magazine’s famous image of a pregnant Demi Moore in 1991. “It’s like a joke. Why not?” Williams said. But the test came back positive — a result that left Williams stunned.
“I did a double take and my heart dropped,” she recalled. “Like literally, it dropped.”
But that wasn’t enough proof to convince Williams she really was pregnant.
Steindorff ran to a pharmacy and picked up five more pregnancy tests for Williams. Each confirmed that the tennis star was expecting.
The baby on board didn’t affect Williams’ performance at the Australian Open a week later.
Williams, who’s won a record 23 Grand Slam titles, not only won the tournament — she did so without even losing a set over seven matches. Williams and Ohanian, 34, plan to get married in the fall, after the baby arrives.
Williams, who is the younger sister of fellow tennis star Venus, revealed in April that she was five months pregnant when she accidentally made a Snapchat photo of her baby bump public after intending to only send it to her friends.
During Williams’ wide-ranging interview with the magazine, she discussed how she and her friends were originally annoyed by Ohanian when they first met him in Rome in May 2015 after he decided to sit next to them by the hotel pool — even though there was ample seating in the area.
“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?’ ” she recalled.
They quickly hit it off. Almost two years later, Ohanian proposed — at the same hotel where they first met.
“I knew it was coming. I was like, ‘Serena, you’re 35, you’re ready. This is what you want,’ ” she recalled.