The tennis legend - who won 10 of her 23 grand slam singles titles after working with Patrick Mouratoglou - recently revealed she had shed over 30lbs after turning to weight-loss medication, and the Frenchman admitted he had "a few fights" with the sportswoman after she gave birth to her first daughter Olympia in 2017.
Patrick told The Guardian: " It was after the pregnancy – not right after; I know these things take time. I told her, 'Listen, this is not a comment on how you look. It’s not my problem.'..
We had a few fights about it. I remember she did not like when I said that because she thought I was judging her. But I kept telling her, I don’t care about your look. It’s not my job. My job is your tennis. If you want to come back to the top and make history, then we have to be very efficient on every level – including this one, which for me was the key element."
Asked if her recent weight-loss admission had made him wish she'd undergone the transformation five or six years ago, he said: "I’m not the type of guy who’s looking back and having regrets. But, yeah, if she would have been in this position physically, the results would have been better."
Patrick insisted tennis players can't afford to be even fractionally overweight because it has such an impact on their game.
He explained: "Tennis is a sport in which you can’t afford to be overweight. First of all, the pressure on your joints and everything is so big that your chances become much higher. The second thing is it’s a sport in which you change directions all the time and with a lot of speed. Even one kilo overweight is a lot. When you go full speed in one direction with one kilo extra and then need to stop and come back, the time that you lose is really important.
"Just look at the best players in the world – Alcaraz, Sinner, Djokovic. Think about their movement. The weight was affecting her movement.
"In Serena’s case, she was older – so of course the body is not going to bounce back the same as before, and the risk of injury is even bigger."
