Serena Williams calls Meghan Markle 'a great friend' for support at the Wimbledon singles final

Serena Williams is full of praises for Meghan Markle, who she calls a “great friend” after the Duchess of Sussex came to support her on Saturday at the 2019 Wimbledon women’s singles final.

The 37-year-old seven-time Wimbledon champion was beaten 6-2 6-2 by 27-year-old Simona Halep, the tennis star from Romania who won her first Wimbledon title on Saturday. Meghan, sister-in-law Kate Middleton, and the Duchess of Cambridge’s sister Pippa Middleton watched the match from the Royal Box at Centre Court, marking the first joint solo outing for the duchesses in a year.

“Just having her in general as a friend is great,” Serena tells reporters after the match. “She’s such a great friend and a great person as well, and always positive, no matter what. So it’s so good to have people like that just to know.”

Meghan and Serena have known each other since 2014 when they played on the same team at DIRECTV’s Celebrity Beach Bowl.

“We hit it off immediately,” Meghan later wrote on her now-shuttered lifestyle website The Tig. “Taking pictures, laughing through the flag football game we were both playing in, and chatting not about tennis or acting, but about all the good old fashioned girly stuff.”

Earlier this week, the tennis star had defended Meghan amid months of negative media reports about her.

“Any time I see her name attached to anything, I don’t read it,” Serena had told reporters at Wimbledon. “She couldn’t be a better friend to me. Low moments, high moments—she’s always there. That’s all I want to be to her.”