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Cape Town - She may not have won her 10th Wimbledon final on Saturday – but at least American tennis ace Serena Williams had one of her closest friends supporting her courtside.
On Thursday, Kensington Palace announced on Twitter that Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and her new sister-in-law, Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, would be in attendance at the women’s final match.
Shortly after the palace’s tweet Serena (36) shared her excitement that Meghan would be there.
“We always had a wonderful friendship,” she said, Daily Mail reports. “Every year for a couple of years she comes out to Wimbledon, has supported me . . . Now she’s supporting me in a different role but our friendship is still exactly the same.”
Meghan is reportedly a regular at Wimbledon. She was last spotted there in 2016, at the time when she reportedly met Prince Harry.
“We’ve always supported each other, just been there for each other through a lot,” Serena says of her friendship with the duchess. “I look forward to it [the game].”
Serena and her husband, Alexis Ohanian, were guests at Meghan and Harry’s wedding in May and were seated near the front of the church.
According to Wimbledon.com Serena, who nearly died during childbirth in September last year, hadn’t expected to reach the tournament’s final again so soon. Daughter Olympia had to be delivered by emergency C-section and Serena was in hospital for weeks after she’d developed blood clots in her lungs and abdomen.
“It’s been a crazy 10 months,” she said shortly before the match. “I was still pregnant at this time last year. That’s something I have to keep reminding myself of. Also, going out there, being a mom, is super-cool.”
Saturday’s match made Serena only the second mom ever to play in a Wimbledon final – the first was Australia’s Evonne Goolagong in 1980.
On Thursday, Serena posted a pic on Instagram to show she was ready for the match, captioning it: “Can’t help but smile. See you Saturday.”
Though she ended up losing the match to Germany’s Angelique Kerber, she did herself proud and sent out a powerful message to mothers everywhere.
“I’d just like to tell all the moms, I had such a long struggle to come back and it was really difficult,” Williams said in her post-match interview.
“Honestly I feel like if I can do it, they can do it. I’m just that person, that vessel, that’s saying, ‘You can be whatever you want to be.’
“If you want to go back to work . . . To me, after becoming a mom, I feel like there’s no pressure to do that because having a child is a completely full-time job.”
Sources: Wimbledon.com, Dailymail, Express.co.uk
