Venus Williams Opens Up About the Confidence She's Found Playing Sports: 'There's No Feeling Like It' (Exclusive)

The legendary athlete was tapped to be a flag football team coach for Dove's Body Confident program

Venus Williams is quick to credit sports for the level of confidence that she maintains in every facet of her life.

The legendary tennis player says that "there's no feeling" like what she experiences when succeeding at her craft.

"I know what sports [have] done for me, not only for a career, let's not even talk about that, but for feeling confident," Williams tells PEOPLE at the Flag Football for Change: DOVE x Sports Legends Venus Williams and Steve Young event in Las Vegas during Super Bowl weekend.

Continues Williams, "When you score a goal, when you achieve something, when you put the work in and you get there, there's no feeling like it."

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Williams — who has amassed seven Grand Slam singles titles, 14 Grand Slam doubles titles alongside her sister Serena Williams and two Grand Slam mixed titles — notes that her participation in the game that made her famous helped the star "to achieve that sort of confidence and belief" in herself.

"It's huge. And I don't think anything teaches that as well as sports," she tells PEOPLE.

The professional athlete wants fans to know that she's "on team body confidence," further noting that "we need women in sports."

"I had no idea some of the statistics of girls dropping out of sports," Williams says. "Forty-five percent of girls globally — because of body confidence issues — drop out [of sports] before the age of 14. I didn't think those numbers existed anymore. So hearing that was very sobering."

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Williams maintains that having a healthy level of confidence in oneself "helps you to shift your focus, and that's what girls need."

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Detailing her work as a flag football coach in conjunction with DOVE, Williams hopes to "inspire" those involved "with my experience in sports and in life and my story and even my career."

"I think the language of sport is universal. It's the same language, even if it's a different sport," the 73-time Women's Tennis Association titleholder says.

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Read the original article on People.