Serena delivers royal smackdown

Serena Williams has quickly dismissed a tennis journo's query about Harry and Meghan's move from the royal family

Serena Williams does not take prisoners.

JOURNALISTS often get a bad rap but sometimes we don't help ourselves.

Take the opening question of Serena Williams' press conference.

Question: "Your good friend, Meghan Markle, who attended your last two slams, and Harry, have taken a move, a stance that many people think is extraordinary and historic. What are your feelings about that? Have you spoken to her?"

Williams is an old hand at handling ridiculous questions so she didn't miss a beat with her reply: "Yeah. I have absolutely no comments on anything with that. But good try. You tried. You did good."

It turns out the journo has form.

Megan Markle cheers on Serena Williams at Wimbledon last year. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

American Bill Simons - who ironically has a picture of him and Serena on his Twitter profile - is famous for another opening question a couple of years back to Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

He started off that press conference by saying simply: "Congratulations".

The only problem was Mahut had actually lost the match.