Serena Williams recalls first time she met Ohanian

Serena Williams of the US shouts during Round Two Women's Singles match of the 2019 US Open against Caty McNally of the US at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York on August 28, 2019. (Photo by Don EMMERT / AFP)


USA tennis great Serena Williams spoke recently about how she met her husband, Redditt co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Williams posted a video of the couple on Instagram taking a “road trip,” which Ohanian says in the video was basically driving in circles around their home.

“This trip started in Roma 5 or 6 years ago lol I’m the worst with time lines. He sat at my table. I asked him to leave. He refused. I found that hot. I asked him if he liked truffles. He said yes. Eventually I said yes. And here we are. 5 or 6 years later @alexisohanian,” she said in a caption to the video.

Williams and Ohanian had their first daughter in September 2017. She had won the Australian Open earlier in the year when she was roughly eight to nine weeks pregnant. She took a lengthy break from tennis during the pregnancy and her first tournament on return was at the Fed Cup in February 2018 in a doubles match with her sister Venus Williams. She made her return to Grand Slam tennis at the French Open that year.

She has since reached the final of the Wimbledon and US Open in 2018 and 2019 and was eliminated from the Australian Open this year in the third round.

Meanwhile, the ATP and WTA announced extension to suspension of their Tours on Friday. Both tours have now been suspended till at least the end of July and thus, the list of cancelled tournaments now exceeds 40.

“The ATP has extended the suspension of the ATP Tour through to July 31, 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” said the ATP. “The decision, made in close collaboration with Tour members, means ATP events in Hamburg, Bastad, Newport, Los Cabos, Gstaad, Umag, Atlanta and Kitzbühel will not take place as scheduled. The extended suspension also applies to the ATP Challenger Tour and to men’s events on the ITF World Tennis Tour.”

Tournaments taking place from August 1 onwards are still planning to proceed as per the published schedule. The ATP however said that a further update on the tour calendar “is expected in mid-June.”

“Following the announcement of the WTA Tour suspension through July 12, the WTA events in Bastad, Lausanne, Bucharest, and Jurmala scheduled for July will not be held, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” said the WTA in its statement. “A decision regarding the dates in which Karlsruhe and Palermo may be played along with further updates to the WTA calendar will be made in June.