Serena Williams' fiancee Alexis Ohanian shares poignant tribute to pregnant tennis player

'Everyone sees her success as an athlete, but all of that is layered on the size of her heart,' says Reddit co-founder

Ohanian and Williams posed for a photo at the annual gala which is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Getty Images)

Alexis Ohanian has heaped praise upon Serena Williams in a touching tribute to the tennis star.

Speaking to Humans of New York at the Met Gala, the Reddit co-founder applauded his fiancée for her ability to give her all to everything in life – especially to being a mother.

“She has the biggest heart,” he said. “Everyone sees her success as an athlete, but all of that is layered on the size of her heart.”

“She gives 100 per cent of herself to everything she does: as a friend, as a lover, and soon, as a mother.”

Ohanian and Williams posed for a photo at the annual gala which is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Colloquially referred to as the “Oscars of the East Coast”, it is one of the most intensely coveted events of the year and termed the biggest night in the fashion industry.

Williams, who won her seventh Wimbledon singles title last year, announced herself and Ohanian were expecting their first child together last month.

The tennis player added the latest of her 37 major titles at the Australian Open, beating sister Venus to the singles title in January. The 35-year-old was expecting at the time.

Williams announced she was engaged to Ohanian at the end of last year. Sharing a poem on a Reddit thread explicitly created for people to share their engagement stories, Williams told of how Ohanian had whisked her off to Rome, where they first met, to propose.

The 34-year-old, who is the executive chairman of Reddit, shared Williams’s post alongside the message: “she said yes”.

Williams is widely seen to be one of the greatest tennis players in history and was the highest paid female athlete in 2016, earning $28.9 million in prize money and endorsements. Her fiancée Ohanian co-founded the social news site Reddit with his University of Virginia classmate Steve Huffman from a two-bedroom startup in Medford, Massachusetts 11 years ago. They were just 22 at the time. The news site is a social media community where users can submit content and has 542 million monthly visitors, making it the 25th most visited website in the world.