Over a week since attending the royal wedding and celebrating her friend Meghan Markle's ‘I do’ to Prince Harry in Windsor, Serena Williams is addressing a new advert which seemingly clashed with the royals’ big day.
Speaking during a press conference at Roland Garros this week, the tennis champion commented on a Nike advert entitled ‘The Queen is back’, which was launched ahead of her return to Grand Slam tennis following the birth of her daughter, Alexis Olympia, in September.
‘Nike came up with this idea right when I decided I was going to come back,’ she explained of the clip which was released just days before Meghan Markle’s big day.
However, the unfortunate timing of the advert’s release and slogan didn’t go unnoticed by the World No.1 player.
’It’s kind of interesting how it all tied into the wedding and, you know, then I felt a little awkward!
‘Now, you know, Meghan is royalty and I have known her for so many years, and I’m like, I’m not — now she’s a princess. A duchess, I should say, excuse me.
‘But anyway, it’s all really cool.’
Serena - who attended the royal wedding with her husband Alexis Ohanian - also took the opportunity to congratulate her the Duchess of Sussex on incorporating elements of African American culture into the ceremony.
Opening up about the nuptials, Williams said: ‘You know, it was really exciting to see so much African-American culture impacted in the wedding, and I was really happy that Meghan wanted to incorporate that into it.
‘I think it was just a whole cultural shift and change.
‘It was seeing how far African-Americans have come, I thought it was an incredibly inspiring and beautiful and really motivating thing.’
For her return on the court yesterday afternoon, the new mum - who took a year-and-a-half break from tennis following the birth of her daughter - donned a black Nike catsuit with a hot pink waistband, much to the delight of Twitter.
Williams said in an interview that her bold choice of outfit helped her feel confident after an exhausting year (no surprise she won the game against Kristyna Pliskova, then), which included complications from her C-section.
She later dedicated her win to every woman who has experienced a difficult pregnancy.
’All the mums out there that had a tough pregnancy and have to come back and try to be fierce, in the middle of everything,’ she told Jon Wertheim at the Tennis Channel. ‘That's what this represents. You can't beat a catsuit, right?’
The Queen really is back.
Katie O'Malley is the Site Director on ELLE UK. On a daily basis you’ll find Katie managing all digital workflow, editing site, video and newsletter content, liaising with commercial and sales teams on new partnerships and deals (eg Nike, Tiffany & Co., Cartier etc), implementing new digital strategies and compiling in-depth data traffic, SEO and ecomm reports. In addition to appearing on the radio and on TV, as well as interviewing everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Rishi Sunak PM, Katie enjoys writing about lifestyle, culture, wellness, fitness, fashion, and more.
