Serena talks the talk, but not about tennis

Reuters: Ask Serena Williams about her dog, her stick-men self portraits or the quirky names she gives her multiple personalities and she will happily chew your ear off, mention her tennis and words are few and far between.

We learned on Friday that her dog, the one with the ‘bad attitude’ has had a haircut after the Parisian rain caused his fur to knot and a favourite artist was a guy on television who much to her surprise is now dead.

Her stunningly impressive start to the French Open campaign, in which she has dropped six games in three matches, however, is: “Okay. (I’m) Just taking every match a little bit at a time and just trying to stay focused.”

On Friday, she motored into the third round with a straight sets win over Romanian Sorana Cirstea. It lasted just one hour and one minute. It was her third consecutive stroll around the red clay of Paris’s 16th arrondissement and provided an ominous warning to her rivals and almost certainly left her next opponent wondering if she should even bother turning up.

But if the world number one and 15-times grand slam winner is starting to let her mind wander to the possibility of a second Roland Garros title and first since 2002, then she is certainly keeping a lid on it.

“I would love to win this one, but there are still a lot of people in the draw that would love to win this tournament, as well. I’m just one of those.” The eyes that had glazed over moments ago, though, flicked back to life when the latest canine addition to her family got a mention.

“I tweeted the cutest picture of him,” she beamed. “He just got a haircut, because he didn’t like the Paris rain so much, so he got some knots on him. So we had to shave him. His name is Chip, and I love him a lot. “He’s just a bundle of joy.”