10 Years After Serena Williams’ Harsh Slap on Women’s Tennis, Her Ex-Coach Patrick Mouratoglou Sounds Off Fresh Controversy With a Heated Take

Historically, the world of sports has largely been dominated by men. It took years of struggle and the hard work of countless path-breakers to finally break the shackles of conventions to provide women with their rightful place in the world of sports. Tennis is no exception. However, the men versus women battle has remained a recurrent narrative in the world of tennis. Right from the days of Billie Jean King to those of Serena Williams, women tennis icons have played their part in making the sport as much inclusive as possible.

The debate regarding the difference in the quality of men’s tennis and women’s tennis rages on, nonetheless. Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou recently shared his take on this issue in a seemingly similar conclusion to that of the 23-time grand slam champion herself.

Patrick Mouratoglou’s harsh stance on quality of men’s and women’s tennis

Who plays better tennis? Men or women? Although many might find this discussion to be irrelevant or meaningless, it has been a topic that fans and experts alike have liked to engage in over the years. The latest to join the bandwagon is renowned tennis coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who is known to have coached the legendary Serena Williams. In a recent Instagram post, he analyzed various aspects of the men’s and women’s game and controversially put the men’s game way ahead of their women’s counterparts.

“I think men’s tennis and women’s tennis are very different in many things.. And one of the things, men play more, whereas women learn to play… They work a lot more on adaptation, so they have better hands and they adapt better to all kinds of situations, where women are repeating things.. They adapt with much more difficulties than men..”, he said in a rather cut-throat analysis.

However debatable it may sound, this opinion is very similar to that of Serena Williams, someone he coached for a considerable period of time in her illustrious career.

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Serena Williams echoed similar sentiments in an interview 10 years ago

The legendary Serena Williams may be considered one of the greatest players to ever grace the tennis court, male or female, but her views on the men vs women debate are shockingly similar to that of Mouratoglou. In an appearance at The David Letterman Show 10 years back, Williams candidly responded to Andy Murray‘s light-hearted challenge laid out to her for a one-on-one tennis match. “For me, men’s tennis and women’s tennis are completely, almost two separate sports, so, I’m like, if I would have played Andy Murray, I would lose 6-0, 6-0 in 5 to 6 minutes, maybe 10 minutes.. It’s a completely different sport, the men are a lot faster, and they serve harder, they hit harder.. It’s just a different game..”, she admitted.

It has been 40 years since the iconic ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match took place between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. Jean King came out victorious that day, changing the course of women’s tennis forever. The ‘battle of sexes’ may have moved away from the tennis court, but it still lingers on somewhere, nonetheless!

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