Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou has compared the tennis icon’s extreme confidence levels to football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Mouratoglou worked with Williams for a decade and helped the American win 10 Grand Slam titles, three WTA Tour Championships and an Olympic gold medal. Williams was renowned for her mental strength and her insatiable appetite to be the best player in the world – though this was sometimes mistaken for arrogance.
It’s a similar story with Ibrahimovic, who is regarded as one of the greatest strikers of all time but has received criticism for his perceived cockiness. Mouratoglou, who now works with former world number one Simona Halep, recently posted a clip of Ibrahimovic during a press conference on his Instagram account.
Why was Williams compared to Ibrahimovic?
The French tennis coach posted a video of the Swedish striker during his LA Galaxy days, where the forward explains why he has such a high opinion of himself. “I have my vision, I have my confidence and I believe in myself. People call it arrogance, I call it confidence. Ignorant people call it arrogance, intelligent people call it confidence.”
Mouratoglou also captioned his Instagram post with a message about believing in yourself and explained that Williams has a similar mindset to Ibrahimovic. “If people call you arrogant probably because they are… Champions are the best at believing in themselves,” he said.
“As Serena [Williams] always say[s], ‘You have to be your best supporter.’ They think they can achieve anything, they are exceptionally confident in their ability to make their goals come true.
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Mouratoglou hails Williams
In April 2022, Mouratoglou revealed he is now working with Halep, just a few months before Williams announced she would be ‘evolving’ away from tennis. “I had a conversation with Serena, and the door opened for me, at least short term, to work with someone else,” he said at the time.
“I missed it big time. Coaching is the passion of my life. It’s the job of my life. And when I went to see Serena to discuss before starting with Simona, that’s what I told her. “Honestly, since I’m back to coaching with Simona, I cannot be happier to coach this again. It’s an incredible satisfaction for me to do that job. It’s incredible.”
What’s happened to Ibrahimovic?
Despite being the same age as Williams, Ibrahimovic is yet to hang up his boots and is still under contract at AC Milan. He was part of the Milan side that won the Serie A title last year, though he is currently recovering from an ACL injury.
