"The way Serena Williams carried herself on the court, very focussed" - Alycia Parks details watching the American's matches and learning from her

Alycia Parks has stated that she regularly watches Serena Williams' matches and that she admires the way the retired star carried herself on the court.

Williams, a 23-time Major winner, is widely regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time. She was ranked the World No. 1 for 319 weeks, including a joint-record 186 consecutive weeks.

She retired from the WTA tour in 2022 and was last seen in action at the US Open. Over the years, she has been an inspiration to younger players, especially for Black women in the USA, and Parks is one of them.

The 23-year-old recently spoke about regularly watching Williams' matches and trying to learn how she dealt with certain situations and apply the same in her own matches.

"I like to watch Serena's matches, I actually ran across one of her matches maybe two days ago. But I think Serena, yeah, I like to watch her matches a lot. I just like to see how she is on the court and in certain situations, if I'm ever in that situation to feed off of that and bring that to my own match," she said at a press conference.

Parks, who resides in Florida like Williams, gave an insight into her learnings from the 42-year-old's matches, outlining her calmness and focus on the court.

"I would say definitely her calmness when she's in certain situations. When things are going too fast, she'll actually slow down and rethink her serve. That's definitely one of her weapons. I kind of just look at her serve and then be like, okay, if she's in trouble, then she'll come back on her service game," she explained.

"Just the way she carried herself on the court, she's very focused. She doesn't, like, rush. I tend to rush a little bit and then usually that's when I start to kind of snowball. So I have to slow it down and take it point by point," Parks added.

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Alycia Parks beats Leylah Fernandez, sets up 3R clash with Coco Gauff at 2024 Australian Open

Alycia Parks in action at the 2024 Australian Open.

Alycia Parks caused an upset on Wednesday, January 17, when she beat 32nd-seed Leylah Fernandez in straight sets at the 2024 Australian Open. After a closely fought battle, she registered a 7-5, 6-4 win in one hour and 43 minutes to reach the third round of a Major for the first time in her career.

Parks, who is competing in the main draw at Melbourne for the first time, will face Coco Gauff next and she is expecting their maiden WTA tour clash to be "fun."

"This match will be obviously our first meeting. I think it will be a fun match. I think both of us are doing actually pretty well. I know everyone else wants to see the matchup, but I think it's pretty good to run across her in a Slam, third round. I guess we're both going to go out there and play our games and see where it goes," she said.