Serena and Sharapova rivalry was more like a cat fight

Tennis icon Serena Williams' former coach Rick Macci has opened up on one of the greatest rivalries in tennis in recent decades discussing his former player's battle with Maria Sharapova.

Having met 22 times in their career, Williams won 20 of the 22 clashes, but they also competed indirectly for titles over the years.

"Maria Sharapova, you know, talk about her rivalry with Serena, and yeah you're right, a rivalry should be a back and forth thing, and I know it was 20-2 with Serena leading the way," Rick Macci said to Sportskeeda.

"I think Maria, when she came to me at 11, her and Yuri, they had their sights on Venus and Serena, and they talked about it, we talked about it a lot, that was always her goal.

"But listen, at the end of the day it was a rivalry simply because maybe it was more like a catfight.

"Who knows, maybe they didn't like each other for other reasons."

Macci was not surprised by Williams' superiority on the court, and put that down to style in particular.

"Whenever Serena played her, it was a bad matchup for Sharapova because Serena knew she had to be aggressive, she had to bring the confident streetfight," Macci explained.

"She had to bring the firepower because Maria would control the points against 95% people on the tour but against Serena, she couldn't and then Maria had to play more defense, and that was a bad matchup."