AMELIA ISLAND, Florida, March 8: Wimbledon, U.S. Open and Olympic champion Venus Williams should quit tennis and younger sister Serena should pay less attention to her game and hit the books, according to their father Richard Williams.

On the eve of the Bausch & Lomb Championships, where Venus is top seed, Williams senior said Venus should focus her energies more on business interests.

“If it was up to me, I told Venus two or three years ago that she should retire. I really think she should,” Williams said.

Venus held the world number one ranking briefly in March and is currently ranked two in the world, but her father still feels she is not fulfilling her potential.

“Venus is a rare human being when it comes to education, business, business knowledge and a lot of other things that go along with business like finance, investments and things like that,” he told Jacksonville newspaper the Florida Times-Union.

“She is a rare quality that every now and then you see in life. I’ve tried to get Venus to understand that.”

Serena — U.S. Open champion in 1999 and runner-up to Venus last year — did not escape her father’s critique either.

“I think Serena puts a little too much emphasis on her game of tennis,” he said. “And if she keeps that up, she can turn out to be one of the dumbest athletes in the world.”—Reuters