My first guest has just won her eighth
Grand Slam singles tennis title
when she defeated Maria Sharapova
in the Australian Open just last weekend.
Please welcome, thrilled that she's here tonight,
Serena Williams!
(audience cheering, band playing funky music)
Thanks so much for being here. Thank you, I'm excited.
Well, this was, that's such a thrilling moment.
First of all, congratulations.
Thank you so much, thank you.
What made it probably all the sweeter for you,
is the critics had kind of counted you out.
Yeah, the critics totally counted me out.
They called me large.
I mean, for the record, I'm not.
(audience cheering wildly)
You know, I could never understand that one.
Right.
And they--
They counted me out.
I wasn't seeded.
Which, I would've almost counted me out, too.
I mean, I Was like number 81 in the world.
And what was your state of mind
before you went into the tournament?
What were you feeling?
Did you know that this was gonna be a big win for you?
Or, what were you feeling?
Well, I mean, each match, as each match got on,
I felt, you know, different.
I had different emotions for each match.
And going into the tournament,
I was just, I just felt like I needed to win something
because I hadn't won an event in two years.
But I hadn't even played that many.
But I'd played a few, but I just wasn't doing
as well as I wanted to do,
so I was just a little frustrated.
But as each match went along,
I definitely felt a lot better.
Now, you took some time off--
Yeah.
What did you want to accomplish
when you took some time off?
Well, I took some time off.
I needed a break physically
because I was dealing with a lot of knee issues.
And, you know, I had knee surgery a couple years ago
and I just never took the right time
to, you know, get it better--
[Conan] Right.
And so, then I injured my ankle
and then it made my knee hurt.
It was just, so much, you know, just trouble
that I just was, "Ugh," going crazy about, but--
You think the time off maybe helped you?
Do you think you were able to come back to tennis
and really be hungry?
The time off definitely helped me.
It made me really hungry, you know,
to be back at the top again.
[Conan] Right.
It made me really excited to go out
and to play tennis and, I mean,
that's what I do best.
I love being out on the court,
I love the atmosphere,
and I just have so much fun with it.
Well, I wanna ask you, there's a photo
in the New York Times that they ran,
and I was, looking at this photo.
Your arm, your arm--
(audience laughing)
[Serena] Wow.
[Conan] Yeah, you, that is...
You have more muscle in just that arm
than I have in my entire body.
(audience laughing)
Compliment you.
I mean, that, I mean yeah,
but your fantastically strong serve, for example.
How fast is your serve?
Well, my fastest serve in Australia was,
like, 203 kilometers.
I don't do metric, I'm sorry.
No, me neither, and it's so hard over there
because everything is metric, and--
Right. You know, it's like,
you just get used to saying, you know,
the metric over there, but I think my hardest serve
that I can recall in miles per hour was like 125--
[Conan] Oh my God.
So it's similar.
(audience cheering)
When you serve 125 miles an hour,
you could kill someone!
Do you ever worry about hitting someone?
Do you ever try to hit somebody?
(audience laughing)
It's potentially dangerous, you know,
to hit it at someone.
[Conan] Right.
But sometimes that's a tactic, you know.
You'll take the ball and you'll just serve it
right at the opponent, and you know--
Try and intimidate them a little bit.
Yeah, but also as a tactic.
You know, I have definitely won some matches
because of intimidation, and those are the best wins.
But those are few and far between
because everyone's so hungry
and everyone's trying to win everything nowadays.
And what do you do if you think
that someone's trying to intimidate you, or trash talk,
you know, your game?
Well, I honestly would advise, it would be best
if no one, you know, it would, in their best interests
because I'm not one to take that lightly.
Especially from one of my peers--
[Conan] Right.
Like if they were to just, 'cause I'm so nice,
I never say anything bad about anybody,
'cause I know how it feels and I hate that feeling
and I would never want anyone to feel that way,
so I'm always really nice to the next person,
but you know, if someone crosses me,
then could be a problem and you don't want that problem.
(audience laughing)
I would never say anything!
You wanna cross me?
No!
Are you sure?
No, not me!
(makes kissing noise)
You're the best!
No, not me. That's right.
Has anyone made that mistake?
Has a tennis player ever said something?
You know, there was a few,
and I used to never say anything about it,
but I just got tired because these girls
would make shots at me in the press for no reason.
[Conan] Right. And I never understood why.
Until this one girl just recently,
she said that, I don't remember what she said now,
it's all water under the bridge,
but I just, afterwards, I said,
"You know what, if she has anything to say,
"I'll be more than happy to talk about it
"in the locker room."
And I meant it because I was just so mad
and so frustrated and, you know,
she never did take up that conversation with me.
You said, "If you got a problem,
"meet me in the women's locker room,
"we'll talk about this."
Absolutely.
I say that when guys try and intimidate me.
Really?
"Meet me in the women's locker room.
(audience laughing)
"And we will talk about this."
You, of course, you love to also design--
Yeah.
The clothes that you wear sometimes when you're playing.
Yeah.
And it's caused,
it's been a little controversial at times?
I went to design school, I went to art school,
and I do a lot of designing.
I've designed the Nike clothes that I wear
and the last Nike collection,
I had a lot of say in the neckline
and the cuts and the shapes, and, you know,
Nike makes great clothes
and they make really athletic apparel,
and you know, it's like, the fabrics
are so comfortable and, you know,
I've never had so much fun, you know,
playing in anything but Nike,
so it's been amazing, and it's great to design
for, you know, such a wonderful company,
so it's like an awesome experience.
I'm like a kid in a candy store.
Well, you designed one outfit, I guess,
that you wore at Wimbledon, and it rattled some
of the people, I think we have, there it is right there.
(Serena laughing, audience cheering)
'Cause that can be an uptight crowd at Wimbledon.
They were shocked, I don't know if you remember it.
This was your opponent in that match.
And, uh, there she is.
(audience laughing)
Yeah, she was definitely on the conservative side.
You know, they were really upset about that.
They wanted to take me off the court
because, you know, Wimbledon,
everyone's like, you know, so pristine,
and they never change the rules,
and you can only wear white, and so,
before the match, I was like,
I knew I was gonna get in trouble,
I was like, "I'm gonna wear these shorts."
[Conan] Sure.
Nike had actually made them for this ad
that I did, and they didn't know I had them.
And I just put them on, I was just being a rebel.
I was having a little fun.
Good for you, God bless you.
That's the way to go.
It was hilarious.