Serena Williams teases a comeback to Wimbledon as she hooks up with Halep’s coach
Serena Williams intimated that she may resume to play at Wimbledon on Thursday after her long-time coach Patrick Mouratoglou said he will work with Simona Halep “full-time.”
Williams, 40, hasn’t played since suffering a torn right hamstring in a Wimbledon first-round match in June.
The news that Mouratoglou, Halep’s coach since 2012, will join her as a partner threw uncertainty on the future of the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion.
She appeared to indicate she may play at Wimbledon in an Instagram video with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers posted backstage at a Bitcoin conference in Miami.
“We’ve been discussing my comeback, and he’s been pumping me up and preparing me for Wimbledon.” “I can’t wait!” Williams said.
“Wimbledon?” Rodgers responded. “How about the US Open?” you might wonder.
“Wimbledon comes first, then the US Open!” “I have to play Wimbledon first!” Williams said.
After skipping the Australian Open earlier this year to work on her return, her ranking has plummeted to 246.
Williams has won 10 of her 23 Grand Slam singles championships since collaborating with Mouratoglou, and she just revealed that she has given him permission to teach another former world number one, Simona Halep.
“I’m looking forward to the next episode. “Let’s get to work,” Halep, a two-time Grand Slam winner who has been without a coach since separating with Darren Cahill in September, tweeted.
According to Mouratoglou, Halep asked him to instruct her as she was practising at his academy in southern France before heading to Indian Wells last month.
Given his commitment to Williams, the Frenchman remarked that it was now “out of the question.”
“I had a chat with Serena a few weeks later, and the door opened for me, at least temporarily, to work with someone else,” he revealed on social media.
Halep, a Romanian, is now ranked 20th. She became world number one for the first time in 2017, and went on to win Roland Garros and Wimbledon the following year.
