Kim Clijsters and Lindsay Davenport back Serena Williams to win more Grand Slam titles
Wednesday 7 June 2017 19:23, UK
Kim Clijsters and Lindsay Davenport have backed Serena Williams to return to tennis and win more grand slam titles.
The 23-time singles champion is due to give birth to her first child in the autumn but has dismissed talk of retirement.
Williams turns 36 in September but Davenport believes chasing down Margaret Court's all-time record of 24 slam singles titles will be at the forefront of her motivation.
"Mentally I was already checked out but she has a goal, she wants to accomplish something and you've got to think that every day she's going to be working towards that once the baby's born," Davenport, who had her first two children late in her career.
"For most people, it's incredibly challenging physically, but Serena's like super woman so I don't know if the same rules apply to her.
"For certain players, logistics could get in the way. Obviously, she's got the means to make that all much easier.
"It was interesting hearing (coach) Patrick (Mouratoglou's) comments here when he spoke to her saying she's dead set on coming back and she wants to break that record.
"Obviously, you want to make sure the baby's healthy and she gets through everything super healthy. But physically she's the best athlete we've ever seen play the sport so you've got to think she's going to be okay."
Williams can certainly take inspiration from former rival Clijsters, who had a remarkable second career after giving birth to daughter Jada.
She won the US Open in only her third tournament back in 2009 and went on to successfully defend that title before adding an Australian Open trophy in 2011.
"I think she could do it," said Clijsters who was 10 years younger than Williams when she came back. "If you put your mind to it, she has the experience, and that's something that helped me so much when I was coming back. I'd won a grand slam before. She definitely knows how to do it."
Although she was incredibly successful as a tennis-playing mother, Clijsters admits it was a struggle to balance the two parts of her life.
She said: "To me, one of the hardest things was combining both. I didn't want my kids to grow up with a nanny.
"Our nanny was there but I wanted to spent enough time with them as well so I felt guilty at times when I had to go and train and I was getting back on tour and training for four or five hours a day.
"So that was sometimes hard, to juggle, more emotionally I think than physically."
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