Wimbledon: Pressure? Holy cow, that's not the reason Serena Williams has lost last two Slam finals

American's defeats were down to tennis reasons

Serena Williams lost to Garbine Muguruza for tactical reasons in the French Open final

People talk a lot about pressure. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say Serena Williams has been wilting under pressure as she chases Steffi Graf’s Open era record of 22 Grand Slam titles I would probably be leading this season’s earnings lists.

Saying that Serena is struggling with the mental side is too simple an analysis. I reckon there were actually good tennis reasons why she failed to win two of the Grand Slam tournaments she has played since she won her 21st title here at Wimbledon last summer.

While I don’t think anybody expects her to have much trouble in the opening match of her title defence here on Tuesday against Switzerland’s Amra Sadikovic, Serena might need to learn from her recent experiences if she goes deep into the tournament.

The Serena defeat that particularly shocked us all was her loss to Roberta Vinci in the US Open semi-finals last September. Holy cow, what an extraordinary result that was. I’ve heard people say that Serena took her opponent too lightly, but to my mind she paid for her inability to adjust to Vinci’s style of play. The Italian had a brilliant game plan and executed it perfectly.

Serena overpowers most of her opponents. She has one of the best serves in the history of the women’s game and both her forehand and backhand are huge weapons. Vinci, in contrast, uses court strategy and court positioning to outmanoeuvre her opponents and create attacking opportunities for herself.

If I had been Serena’s coach I would have been taking off my Maui Jim sunglasses. We all know we’re not supposed to coach during matches, but that used to be my signal to my players to slow down

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Vinci can serve and volley, she can slice the ball very low and she can also hit angles, drop shots and lobs. She gave Serena no pace, kept the ball out of her strike zone and threw her off balance with drop shots, dinks, and by coming into the net. Serena did not know how to adjust - or just refused to adjust. She continued to play very offensively and didn’t make allowances to counteract Vinci’s strategy.

It was a similar story in Serena’s French Open final against Garbine Muguruza, although she was of course facing a very different opponent. Muguruza is an attack-minded player with big shots. Boy, when she hits that goddam ball it stays hit.

Once again Serena was caught off guard. She was overpowered and did very little to change her tactics to counteract Muguruza’s attacking play. Serena tried to outhit Garbine and ended up making too many unforced errors in the process.

If I had been Serena’s coach I would have been making a show of taking off my Maui Jim sunglasses. We all know we’re not supposed to coach during matches, but that used to be my signal to my players to slow down during matches. That’s what Serena needed to do.

The mental pressure of being so close to equalling Graf’s record may have had an effect, but I think the biggest problem was that Serena did not try to change the pace by hitting higher, heavy deep shots or being more defensive. That might not be in her nature, but I think it was what the situation demanded.

Maybe she will not have to face the same challenges here, where the surface suits her game much better, but you never know. Having had the privilege to be part of Serena’s team earlier in her career I’m certainly hoping that she can go on to beat Graf’s record.

Coaching report

Man, what a joy it was to watch Garbine Muguruza’s 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 victory over Camila Giorgi. I can honestly say it was one of the best women’s matches I’ve ever seen. The way both women took the ball early and covered every blade of grass made it a great contest to watch.

Holy mackerel, Muguruza was taking the ball so early, inside the baseline, that she was almost hitting half-volleys. My only concern about that would be when the grass starts to get a bit chewed up next week. If she’s hitting the ball that early and gets a bad bounce there’s no time to adjust.

Camila Giorgi, boy, this girl can play (Getty)

I was just as impressed by Giorgi. She’s a real fighter. The way she came back in that second set and pushed Muguruza hard in the third was terrific.

I hope some of the Italian men saw that match. Given my background it pains me to say this, but too many Italian men don’t have the heart to match their ability. Talent is not enough in tennis. Sometimes you just have to fight your ass off.

Who I met today…

It’s 25 years since Michael Stich beat Boris Becker here in the Wimbledon final. I saw both of them here on Monday. Michael was wearing a beautiful brown suit. “You’re looking good, baby,” I told him. “Just as handsome as ever!”

Boris gave me a big hug. It was just like old times. I loved my time coaching Boris. He was a great champion and now he’s doing a great job coaching Novak Djokovic. “Keep going, Boris,” I told him. “He said: ‘Same to you, Nick’.

I was also really pleased to bump into Butch Buchholz and Charlie Pasarell. They were both fine players but they’ve done so much more for the game in other roles since then. They were also extremely helpful to me when I set up my academy in Florida, which is now the IMG Academy. I’ll always be grateful to them for the support they gave me in the early days.