Serena sorrow
Learned of parole for sister’s killer before rout
It all makes sense now, because we'd never seen Serena lose like that.
Williams recently revealed in an interview with Time Magazine that minutes before she suffered the most lopsided defeated of her career, she found out that the man that killed her sister, Yetunde Price, had been paroled.
She lost 6-1, 6-0 to Johanna Konta in the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic on July 31. The match lasted only 52 minutes.
"I couldn't shake it out of my mind," Williams told Time.
"I have so many things on my mind; I don't have time to be shocked about a loss that clearly wasn't at my best right now," Williams said in the immediate aftermath. "When I was out there, was fighting. That's the only thing I can say."
Williams learned of the news while checking Instagram before the match, where she found out that Robert E. Maxfield was getting paroled three years before his full sentence was over.
In 2003, Maxfield was convicted of shooting Price, a mother of three.
"It was hard because all I think about is her kids," Williams told the magazine, "and what they meant to me. And how much I love them."
"No matter what, my sister is not coming back for good behavior," Williams continued. "It's unfair that she'll never have an opportunity to hug me."
In the interview, Williams also opens up about almost dying while delivery her daughter, her comeback on the court, and breastfeeding.
“You have the power to sustain the life that God gave her,” she said. “You have the power to make her happy, to calm her. At any other time in your life, you don't have this magical superpower.”
Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou suggested she stop.
At first, she balked at the idea, but has since changed her mind.
“It's absolutely hard to take from a guy,” Williams said. “He's not a woman, he doesn't understand that connection, that the best time of the day for me was when I tried to feed her. I've spent my whole life making everyone happy, just servicing it seems like everyone. And this is something I wanted to do.”
“I looked at Olympia, and I was like, ‘Listen, Mommy needs to get her body back, so Mommy's going to stop now.' We had a really good conversation. We talked it out.”
Williams has won 23 Grand Slam singles titles, putting her one short of Margaret Court's all-time record. This month's U.S. Open will be her final chance to reach the milestone this year.