"My mom doesn't want the attention" - Serena Williams shares how mother Oracene Price worked behind the scenes to make her a mental 'beast'

Serena Williams is one of the greatest tennis players of all time. While her father's role in her success is well documented and immortalized in a film called King Richard, her mother's role still isn't widely known.

That isn't so much because her mother didn't play a role in her life or her career, but rather because Oracene Price never really wanted to be in the limelight. She's often been photographed courtside but the extent of her role in shaping Serena, as a person and player, has not been spoken about.

To shed light on her mother's effort, the legendary player talked about her in an interview for the New York Times DealBook Summit. She mentioned how her mother simply didn't want the attention but was no less instrumental for her than her father.

"She doesn't want the attention. My dad was the body and my mom was the spine. There is no better way to describe it. That's how important she was to us, to our family, to my career."

Serena Williams speaks on her mother, the mental coach

In the same interview, Serena was asked how precisely her mother impacted her career and she obliged, recalling how her mother mostly worked with her while her father worked more with Venus at the time.

Serena Williams spoke highly of her parents recently. (Source: Getty)

According to Williams, her mother had really strong mental resilience, which is very important in professional sports.

Many players have talked about the importance of mental toughness in elite sport. Serena's mental toughness has often been cited as the key to her incredible success on the tennis court. Williams ultimately ended up getting 23 Grand Slam trophies, which is the second-best mark ever, behind only Margaret Court.

"Particularly with me, she worked on my mental toughness more than anything else. Under my mom's tutelage, I was able to really become this beast. She's so mentally fortified and she was able to give that to me and I'm really grateful for it."

Williams overcame quite a few obstacles both on and off the court to become one of the GOATs of the sport. She remains the only player to win a Career Golden Slam in both singles and doubles. She was also ranked World No.1 in singles for a total of 319 weeks: an astonishing achievement.

And as she explained in the media interaction, none of that would have been possible without her mother.