Serena Williams’ 11-month-old daughter, Alexis Olympia, isn’t working on her serve just quite yet. But she is practicing French!
The tennis pro shared a video speaking French (she is fluent!) to the infant on Wednesday, August 1. “Wash your hands,” Williams, 36, says to Olympia who is seen in the Instagram Story playing with the dog’s water bowl. The 23-time Grand Slam captioned her post: “Now I have to give her a bath.”
Williams is multilingual and has has shown off her French and Italian skills during speeches after international competitions.
“One of the reasons I learned French was I wanted to win the French Open, and I wanted to speak French when I won,” she told The Fader in 2016. “The second was because, most African countries, the main language outside of their local language is French or English. So I figured: I know English, maybe I can learn French.”
Williams was able to use her Italian during a quick trip to Venice, Italy, last month with her husband, Alexis Ohanian. (She was craving the country’s cuisine, so the Reddit cofounder whisked her away for a spontaneous getaway!) But Ohanian, 35, recently told Us Weekly he thinks Willams appreciates the smaller gestures the most.
“When I think of the most romantic things I’ve done for my wife, I actually think they’re the times when I was just there as a father to our baby, or as a husband,” the entrepreneur told Us at the 1850 Brand Coffee pop-up event on July 24. It doesn’t need to be the super extravagant trip to Rome or to Venice for Italian food. It just needs to be stepping up and being there, being a great partner.”
