Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou says mental health is ‘more important’ than skill

CANNES — Serena Williams’ former coach emphasized the importance of an athlete’s mental Health over skill set.

“I think it’s more about mental than anything else. Of course we need to work on the forehand, the backhand, the serve — all the things that are tennis things,” Patrick Mouratoglou told Page Six on Monday at Stagwell Sport Beach during the Cannes Lions festival.

“I think most of my job is to help them develop as people and become as confident as they can become in their ability to achieve what they’re dreaming to achieve.”

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Mouratoglou, 54, said he believes Grand Slam champions are not “necessarily the best tennis players” but instead are the ones who win “with their heads.”

“[You win a Grand Slam] with your beliefs, your resilience, with your ability to change a tough situation into a winning one,” he said, “so I help people develop all those assets that I think are much more important than forehands and backhands because at the end of the day your tennis will become how you are.”

The famed tennis coach, who recently opened a new outpost of Mouratoglou Academy at the Ritz-Carlton in Naples, Fla., also addressed Naomi Osaka’s 2021 decision to take a break from the sport to focus on her mental health after losing at the US Open.

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“It’s more linked with this crazy success and all the pressure that came with it, she was struggling to embrace at some point,” he explained.

“She felt it was too much. She felt she had to be perfect all the time, and it became a burden, but I think she’s in a great place at the moment.”

Mouratoglou believes Osaka, 26, is “ready to win again.”

“I see how she is, how she handles things, how she also handles tennis at the moment,” he shared with us. “I think she’s done extremely well. … I think it’s unbelievable for women’s tennis to have Coco [Gauff] and Naomi because both of them are potential superstars that are going way beyond tennis eventually.

“We need people like that, people who are role models for life.”