The 23-time Grand Slam champion opened up about her previous tense relationship with her longtime adversary.
For Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova, it’s all about burying the hatchet and putting their legendary tennis rivalry to rest once and for all, even though it’s diss track season in the music industry.
Serena, the 23-time Grand Slam champion, stated in a recent video that has been making the rounds on social media that there was no animosity between her and her longtime rival—at least, “not anymore.”
As they joined Alexis Ohanian in a series highlighting the Reddit co-founder’s enormous collection of Serena Williams playing cards, she informed Chris Jackson of ALT that. Talk inevitably shifted to Maria Sharapova, the other tennis player included in the collection, while the three of them rummaged through packs of Goodwin Champion in search of Serena “Exquisites.”
“Is there any beef there?” Jackson inquired, to which Serena replied firmly, “Not anymore.”
“So, was there ever beef? I suppose. “It was just competitive,” Serena added. “She was winning and I was winning, you know?
“We both wanted to win, and I do not believe it was personal. It was simply, ‘Do you want to win?’.”
Fans of the duo have undoubtedly witnessed the renownedly icy relationship between Williams and Sharapova melt in the years after the Russian’s 2020 retirement. The two have been spotted together at a number of red carpet and entertainment industry events, such as the Met Gala this year, where Venus Williams and the rivals formed a chic tennis trio while they posted up a storm on selfie sticks.
Although Serena’s admirers applaud her for remaining elegant, they also recall that their feud did become a little “personal” and heated over time.
Who can forget the controversial *Rolling Stone* interview, after all, in which readers perceived Williams as disparaging Sharapova? Or the controversy and upheaval following the publication of *Unstoppable*, Sharapova’s 2017 biography—a book Serena referred to as “100% hearsay”—?
