Serena Williams, competing in her first tournament post-Wimbledon, has played her way into the quarterfinals of the Rogers Cup event in Toronto, where she'll face off against Naomi Osaka, the woman who defeated Williams in last year's US Open final. Following her third-round win over Ekaterina Alexandrova, Williams—the owner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles—spoke to the media about her upcoming rematch with Osaka, finding her rhythm on hard courts, her pursuit of 24, and more.
Q. How different does it feel competing at an event, you know, it's a Premier 5, but typically lately when we've seen you, it's been at the big events, and maybe there's a lot more hullabaloo about those. Is it nice to have a lesser kind of heaviness to the event here, or do you not feel that way at all?
Serena Williams: Yeah, I definitely feel lesser, for sure, but I haven't really thought about it. It definitely feels nice, though, just to be at a regular event, because I haven't played a lot of regular events this year.
And I love supporting the tour, and I always want to play, so it's good to be able to actually make it out.
Q. Specifically on Osaka, you haven't had a chance to play her since last year. Are you looking forward to an opportunity to play her again?
Serena Williams: Yeah, absolutely. I've been actually looking forward to playing her for a while. You know, she's had a great year early in the season, and she's still doing pretty good, actually. So it would be really good to play her again.
Q. So through two matches, especially on the hard courts. Simona [Halep] was saying your first match on a hard court after a long break, you feel like you've been hit by a train. The body doesn't feel right. So through two matches for you, and how do you feel? And what are you pleased with so far?
Serena Williams: Yeah, I definitely feel like it takes a while to get back into the rhythm. Because we've had a long season of just clay and then grass, and now we're on hard courts. So it definitely feels different, especially for me now. Usually I don't feel that huge of a difference, but for whatever reason I do this year.
But, yeah, I'm feeling good. Just hopefully just being able to stay in the rhythm and playing this week and next week would be good.
Q. There will be an opportunity later this month to go after No. 24. Do you view that as critical for yourself, or do you feel as though you've done so much in your career, won so many—23—the actual number at the end of the day won't matter? Or is it a meaningful number for you?
Serena Williams: I think it's definitely meaningful. But, you know, at this point in my career, I just try to think of different things and even bigger goals. So it's just like, you know, 24 is just a thing.
Q. Bigger goals, such as non-tennis things?
Serena Williams: Yeah. Like, you know, there's so much more important things in my life. And obviously tennis is super important to me or else I wouldn't be sitting here right now. But, yeah, there's always other things in life, I feel, that are really big on my plate, too.
