“How do you get a child to be great? You make them think great. I believe whatever you put in a child’s mind will last forever, whether you want it to or not. For that reason I would always tell [Venus and Serena] that they were great. Once Venus hit a ball so badly it went over the fence. Nobody could hit a ball that bad. But how did I know what she was trying to do? She could have been experimenting. It didn’t matter. To me, every shot was a good shot.
I said, ‘Great shot.’
She stopped, looked at me, and said, ‘Do you really believe that’s a great shot?’
I said, ‘Oh, yeah, you can’t be beat, hitting like that. Great shot, Venus.’
She just laughed.
What happened years in the future? Venus was playing the Australian Open, a Grand Slam tournament. You only have four Grand Slams all year. In one game, she hit a serve so wrong it went way up in the stands. Like the second deck. It went so far up that Venus had to cup her hands over her eyes to find it. For other players, it could have been an embarrassing moment that broke their concentration. Not Venus. When she finally saw where it landed, the first thing she did was laugh. She didn’t put any pressure on herself because she wasn’t ever taught pressure. She thought that serve was great because she had been taught greatness all her life.”
