Serena Williams covers the July issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK, which sort of confirms to me that Serena is targeting Wimbledon for her biggest push of the year. Serena loves to play on grass and Wimbledon is one of her favorite tournaments – if not her favorite, flat-out – of the year. She wasn’t doing a lot of French-magazine covers and interviews ahead of Roland Garros, but here she is on the cover of Bazaar UK? Chica wants to win Wimbledon this year. We’ll see! While I believe in her and I know that she’s the GOAT, I still don’t think she’s got much of a chance to win Wimbledon this year. As for the interview… it’s good! You can read the full piece here. Some highlights:
She wants more Slam titles: Her aim is to beat Margaret Court’s all-time record of 24 Grand Slam singles titles, won between 1960 and 1973. ‘But why limit myself to 25? I love making history. This gives me another opportunity.’
The body-shaming that followed her throughout her career: ‘It was hard for me. People would say I was born a guy, all because of my arms, or because I’m strong. I was different to Venus: she was thin and tall and beautiful, and I am strong and muscular – and beautiful, but, you know, it was just totally different.’
One of her goals used to be getting down to a Size 4: ‘Oh God, I’ll never be a size 4! Why would I want to do that, and be that? This is me, and this is my weapon and machine. But I love that I said that, because I can understand. I can show Olympia that I struggled, but now I’m happy with who I am and what I am and what I look like… Olympia was born and she had my arms, and instead of being sad and fearful about what people would say about her, I was just so happy.’
She loved being pregnant: ‘If I wasn’t playing tennis, I’d be pregnant right now – sorry, I’m one of those women. I’ve been injured so many times, and played on it, my body is used to adjusting.’
She knew she would need a C-section: ‘I knew I wasn’t going to be able to have her naturally, it was like this intuition. I just kept thinking, “There is no way it’s going to happen”, and it didn’t.’
She suffered from post-partum depression. ‘Honestly, sometimes I still think I have to deal with it. I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of the pregnancy. I remember one day, I couldn’t find Olympia’s bottle and I got so upset I started crying… because I wanted to be perfect for her.’ Does she feel she’s a good mother? ‘I do. I hope I am, and I’m going to strive to be the best mom I can be.’
Whether she wants Olympia to play tennis: ‘I don’t know any player who would say they want their kid to play tennis. Outside of the Mandarin tutor and the French tutor, which I’m really serious about, and of course ballet, I have no dreams for her. I want to let her do whatever she wants to do, as long as it’s positive. Always try to be an addition to society, not a subtraction.’
She wants more kids: ‘I told Alexis, I hope it’s another girl. Olympia needs a little sister, and then we can have a boy. I’ve only been around girls my whole life.’
As I watched Being Serena on HBO, I just kept thinking over and over “she’s never going to do this again, that’s why she’s filming it now.” Is that wrong? I don’t doubt that she WANTS more kids. I just don’t think she’ll have any more when all is said and done, because at the end of the day, she doesn’t want to put her body through all of that again. She literally almost died giving birth to Olympia. As for the rest of it… GOAT gonna GOAT. She’s amazing.
Note: right now, as you’re reading this, Serena will be playing Maria Sharapova today at the French Open. Cross your fingers for her!!
UPDATE: People are saying Serena has pulled out of the French Open because of an arm injury OMG.
Covers courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar UK.
I love the cover, she looks strong and like herself and it’s really pretty, not shopped to death
This! That cover is one of the best shots of her I’ve ever seen. I can’t spot any shopping and I’m so glad they didn’t feel the need to do that. She’s glowing and she looks like a warrior/Venus rising from the sea. And I don’t even have words for awesome her hair looks like this.
Kick her a**, Serena!
I LOVE HER!! I’m also a visibly-muscular woman in a family of thin women, and it was a struggle until I let it go. And I embraced my physique in large part because of her. I love this- “it’s my weapon, it’s my machine.” Such a role model.
Whoever dressed her for these covers should be her full-time stylist — she looks AMAZING.
I concur
She looks amazeballs. And I want her bathing suit.
I also have major leg envy. I’m only 5’2″ and chubby ahah. But I’d kill for her legs. This is making me want to get back on the stair climber.
Beautiful covers! The interview is really good.
There’s something weird about the second photo. Her head/face seem so much larger and out of proportion to the rest of her body. Photoshop fail?
I’m going to be rude and speculate that she might be planning to use a surrogate next time (which makes sense to me, her body and by extension her career is very valuable). She might have already done it … she said “I hope it’s another girl” and that sounded present tense to me, rather than future tense.
If she’s using a surrogate, they would know for certain that it was a girl. You can sex select the embryo that is implanted. So I’m not disagreeing with the idea that she may use a surrogate but I don’t think the clue is the fact that she said “I hope it’s a girl.”
In my head, Serena wipes the floor with Maria and then whispers to her “You’re just like Ivanka.” Maria then breaks down and thanks Serena for writing her next book for her.
YES!
Maybe she plays tennis another year or two but I think she retires soon to have more children.
MTE.
I wish her good health should she try again for more children.
I’m sad Serena pulled out of the French due to an arm injury. I was looking forward to watching her toy with Sharapova.
Heal up and get ready for Wimbledon, Serena!
I think she´ll be pregnant by the end of this year again.
I love Serena… she’s awesome. Every quote. Her positivity, her fairness, cleverness, and passion…
So it was cool when she got pregnant, and I was pregnant… and then we had our baby girls a month apart, both c-sections. It was nice knowing that someone I admired was out there going through similar events.
I think she’ll have more children. I know I’d like another one… it was hard being pregnant, but worth it in the end. And I’m so grateful. I didn’t think I would ever have the opportunity, and now… there’s this beautiful, chubby, grunty, funny little person in my arms, smiling up at me. I feel like Hellboy, when he realized that he had become ‘Papa’. Life is so wonderful and mysterious.
Aww man, I set my PVR and everything to enjoy watching Serena today and she pulled out. That’s better than an actual loss to that other woman, but I’m still sad nonetheless.
No! Serena’s just pulled out!
Pectoral muscle injury.
I just love Serena! She always emits such positive energy, and never plays the victim. She is such an awesome role model for ALL women! Just love her 🙂
I have great big fat muscular legs, and my neighbor and I were always saying “if only we could lose 10 pounds” until one day I said what if we just decide to be happy with who we are? I feel so much better now.
Foolish to play her doubles match yesterday. If she felt her injury in her previous singles match she should have pulled out of the doubles match to rest and not injure herself further.
“This is me, and this is my weapon and machine.”
BRB, having this blown up as large as possible, printed, and framed to hang in mine/my daughter’s room.
Me too!
Growing up, I once picked up some magazine in my mum’s room, I was probably 10. Sharapova and Serena were low-key beefing. Sharapova was the it girl though. Decades later, it’s still on. I love this era.
I could be wrong but I think she’s going to retire. I just have this feeling. She talks about her daughter a lot, then there is this comment about getting pregnant again. I think also – this injury (it’s her pecs… so… her serve) is going to hit hard in her psyche that things do change as you get older, especially for women and for women who have children later in life. I get the sense she’s fighting it hard now – still very much in ‘coming back’ mode, but I don’t think this injury will go well, I don’t think Wimbledon will either and I bet she then retires.
Yes, I thought the same! I am not a tennis fan, so have never heard her interview, but I think she is positioning herself to separate from her career and enjoy being a mom.
Serena fans, don’t attack…
I am not saying she did not have PPD, but the example she cites does us all an enormous disservice.
What she has quoted as an example of PPD is really more of “baby blues”, the minor form of hormone -related sadness that most moms experience as a matter of course.
Those of us who have had PPD know that the depression treads into territories which include:
suicidal ideations, infanticidal ideations, and psychotic features like hearing voices. That this Harper’s UK article writer chooses to couch it in such a minimizing way is sickening.
I had excessive fears of harm coming to my infant, and had voice delusions (things like saying, “You’re ugly” in the cadence of things like a simple, crank baby swing- luckily, though, no thoughts of harm to myself or my daughter, and no repeat episode in my subsequent high-risk twin pregnancy. I can say that I knew something was wrong (it was back in the mid 90s), but didn’t want to take medication because I wanted to continue breastfeeding. I just slogged through it, but there are cases of women who have such delusions that they kill their children and/or themselves.
I hope this wasn’t TMI. I feel very passionate about this, especially for women in the US who do not have support of decent maternity leave. We need supportive legislation and a PSA about this!!!