I worry about impact on women’s tenn

The American has done absolute wonders for the sport and taken it to another level

You have no idea how pumped I was when I first heard that Andy might team up with Serena Williams at Wimbledon. I was following all the chat in the papers and online. So, when it actually came off, it is fair to say I was proper hyper.

I never imagined that I would have the chance to share a player box with the Williams family. I still remember the moment when Venus and Serena first arrived on the tour in their early teens. They were a phenomenon: two Africanamerican youngsters equipped with a ferocious power game that no one had seen before.

Venus played her first professional match 25 years ago, so it is funny to think that the first reaction of many tennis experts and fans was to say that they would not last.

There were not many Africanamerican female players in those days – just Zina Garrison and Chanda Rubin – but these girls broke the mould in so many ways. They grew up playing on the public courts of Compton, California, where they were lucky to have each other as sparring partners. The whole journey would have been all but impossible if Richard Williams had only had one daughter.

I have massive admiration for what he did. On top of playing an unprecedented level of tennis, the Williams sisters have maintained an incredible passion for the game. That is probably because it has always been the focus of the whole family, who travelled to tournaments in numbers from the start. Speaking

as someone who has experienced the insular world of tennis and knows how lonely a player’s life can be, I understand the advantage of being surrounded by your parents and siblings on the road.

Admittedly, only the very top players can afford that luxury. But I believe that the sisters’ longevity has a lot to do with that

Serena now has a husband and a little daughter, and having them at her side is a massive thing for her. She looks like she is the fittest she has been since she had her baby, and has got stronger and stronger as the tournament has gone on.

I think the three mixed doubles matches she played with Andy will also have helped her. Her mental sharpness will have benefited from the extra match time, which she has been lacking recently because of her knee problems.

The fact that Andy and Serena played on Centre Court, late on

When you consider where the Williams sisters came from it is one of the greatest stories in sport

Saturday evening, is testament to the regard that she is held in. It was on at the same time as Dan Evans’s epic singles match against Joao Sousa, but I think they got 4.8million viewers to 1.3million. It is such a powerful thing when men and women work together.

Among the world’s biggest sports, tennis is the leader when it comes to equal representation. Yet we could still do better at harnessing that advantage.

I worry about the impact on women’s tennis when Serena does eventually come to the end of her career. She is one of the world’s most famous female athletes, maybe the most famous, and the fact that she happens to be a tennis player is a great advantage for our sport. She is recognised by the wider public. She is used in campaigns by numerous major brands, she is friends with dozens of celebrities from Beyonce to the Duchess of Sussex, and she even has her own TV series: Being Serena. Above all, she uses her voice and her global platform to speak out on social causes and areas of inequality.

When you consider where the Williams sisters came from, and all the racial, social and gender obstacles they surmounted, it is one of the greatest stories in sport. Early in their career, they experienced the hostility of the Indian Wells crowd, which would never have happened if they had been a classic pair of country-club white girls. That was in California, the state where they grew up. They said “Fine, we’re not coming back” – or at least not for 17 years. They are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in, and that attitude has broken down so many barriers.

So, when that time comes, Serena will be a massive loss. You could put Venus in a similar bracket of fame, and Maria Sharapova. But the others coming through do not have anything like the same profile that she has. Who is going to take her mantle?

Serena is very active on Instagram, and a lot of fun to follow. She posts pictures of her daughter, shares her thoughts on motherhood, and tackles inequality where she sees it. She does not just paint the ups but the downs as well. She talks about the struggles she went through having baby Olympia and her post-partum problems. She keeps it real and many women relate to her now.

So, who is going to step up? It is hard to see Venus playing on after Serena has finished. Sharapova is struggling with injuries. Not every female athlete wants to be like Serena, or has the confidence to stand up and say “I am the world’s best”.

The women who have got to No1 recently have rarely stayed there for any length of time. It feels as if they are uncomfortable with the extra expectation, pressure and attention. New faces are winning majors, but not with the regularity that those three did.

It has been a great thing for me to see the whole Serena Williams show from a closer perspective, to be able to share this tournament with her family and to get to know them a little better. It has been fascinating and a huge privilege. I am not sure we will see her like ever again.