Serena Williams, Wonder Woman, Is Our September Cover Star

For two decades, Serena Williams has been a tennis superhero. Now, she opens up about the challenges she's overcome to get there—and what it will take to stay number one.

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"When I play, I'm so in the zone," Williams says. "You have to purge your mind of everything." Photo by: Mark Seliger

This article originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of SELF.

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"I am who I am. I love who I am," Serena Williams says. "Just that whole attitude of being strong and powerful—that's something I can get behind." It's Sunday afternoon, and Williams is sitting poolside in the backyard of her Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, home, having just clocked a few hours of practice as she gears up for the most important stretch of her year. At the time of our conversation, she's preparing to compete in three Grand Slam tournaments plus the Summer Olympics, with the world record for major wins dangling within her reach. She's talking about her cameo in Beyoncé's explosive visual album Lemonade ("I was so honored!" she says), which premiered on HBO the night before. But her sentiment could apply to any number of undertakings—her total dominance on the court, her successful fashion line or her soft twerking with Bey—that she's approached with the same dynamism throughout her career. 2016 marks Williams's 21st year as a pro: It's more than two decades in, and we still cannot look away.

Williams has won an astounding 71 singles championships. She was the first African-American woman in the Open Era to win a Grand Slam title—and has racked up a total of 22, officially tying Steffi Graf's record with her July win at Wimbledon. She's earned more than $77 million in prize money, the most ever for a female tennis player, and notched almost 1,000 career victories if you count her doubles triumphs, mostly with sister Venus. Williams will play for her fifth gold medal at the Rio Olympics in August. ("If I could grab one thing in a fire," she says, "it would be my gold medals.") In September she'll turn 35. Well past the age of many of her competitors, she is the number-one-ranked women's player in the world and has been, at press time, for the last 177 weeks. "It's always been, like, bring it on—and more," she says with a grin.

Every bit of this she's accomplished while playing her game with a signature blend of intensity and earnestness: the fist pumping, the full-throttle grunting, occasionally breaking into splits. When she does it, she means it. In the past, Williams had been known to let her ego go unchecked, but now she dials up her game in a way that reflects a deep respect for her sport—and a vulnerability that most mega athletes are reluctant to display. Her days of yelling at line judges (as she famously did at the 2009 U.S. Open semifinals) may be over. "I'm a little more calm," Williams says. "But at the same time, I'm even hungrier to win."

Watch: Serena Williams Teaches Us How To Twerk:

Still, Williams is graceful even when she loses. She may describe her approach as "winning is the only option," but over the years, she's developed a certain self-assured humility and blunt realism. When victory evaded her at the French Open finals, marking her third Grand Slam defeat in a row, she refused to blame the adductor injury she was nursing, instead complimenting her young opponent's game. "At the end of the day, I didn't play the game I needed to play to win, and she did," Williams told reporters shortly after the match. She admits that every loss nevertheless stings. "I usually beat myself up," Williams says. " 'Gosh, why did I lose that? I know I could have done better.' "

She speaks excitedly about the championships yet to come. And by anyone else's standards, Williams has had a triumphant season, placing second in the first two major events of the year. But as the number-one player in the world—and, more to the point, as Serena Williams—she's expected to be perfect. "I got super disciplined this time, for the first time in a while," Williams says about her strict diet (no wheat, no sugar). In addition to eating more consciously, she's spending this crucial period continuing the work that started long ago—intense daily practice and watching game tapes, though "usually not the ones I lose," she concedes. "After I analyze it, I figure out: Am I going to be better next time?"

Of her upcoming marathon of matches, Williams says, "Fortunately, I've done this back-to-back before, so that has taken away a lot of the stress. Mainly, I'm looking forward to it." She adds that she's still carving out time to put her feet up. "I need days hanging out with my friends, just to take my mind off things and stay relaxed."

Now, Williams is also beginning to share a side of herself with fans that's increasingly unfiltered. There's a goofier, more playful Serena to be discovered on Snapchat, where you'll find her lip-synching to Justin Bieber, cooking chicken like an Iron Chef contestant and having a fangirl meltdown after meeting Tom Brady. The medium brings Williams out into the open even more completely, which, for her, is exactly the point. "I wish people didn't know I slept with a teddy bear," she quips, referring to one of her many posts, "but now they do. It's out there." Offline, she started a dance team called the Kryptonians with some friends, facing off for judges at an annual Williams family-and-friends blowout. (Who came up with the name? "I did," she announces proudly. "I'm obsessed with Superman.") On a broader stage, she's revealed a talent for design, pouring her off-court energy into her HSN fashion line, which this fall will show at New York Fashion Week for the third time.

"The past few years have been eye-opening. Now, I'm winning matches based on my approach," Williams says. "Where in the past, I would win just on my desire." Photo by: Mark Seliger

Williams isn't afraid to get real on a deeper level, either. Having suffered a life-threatening pulmonary embolism in 2011, at age 29, she says that "all this is a bonus." At times, she's looked downright immortal midshot, but talking about her brush with death, she briefly looks to the sky. "I'm happy to even be alive right now," she says. "I win a Grand Slam, and I'm more appreciative about it. I'm not like, on to the next....OK, I still am! But I at least take five minutes to be in the moment."

Part of that appreciation may stem from the fact that Williams has faced steep challenges from the start. She first took the court at age 3, in Compton, California, just south of Los Angeles, where she spent her childhood. At the time, gangs ran rampant and violence proliferated. Her father and then-coach, Richard Williams, encouraged her and her sisters (Serena is the youngest of five) to block out the chaos around them—and play on. He'd also pay schoolkids to stand on the sidelines during practice and heckle Venus and Serena, wanting them to grow a thick skin. "I think that ended up helping me," says Williams, squinting in the late afternoon sunshine. "My mental game has always been from my dad."

Her physicality, however, is all her own. Sitting in the Florida sun, Williams wears a sleeveless maxidress that shows off her sculpted arms. These are multimillion-dollar limbs, responsible for the shots that have made Williams a legend. But her body has also been subject to scrutiny over the years.

In 2014, the president of the Russian Tennis Federation referred to Venus and Serena facetiously as the Williams brothers. Last summer, when an inflammatory tweet echoed the remark, chalking up Serena's success to being "built like a man," Harry Potter author and longtime tennis fan J.K. Rowling immediately fired back, posting a photograph of Williams dressed for a formal event in a scorching red dress and Louboutin stilettos. "Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress," she tweeted at the offending party. "You're an idiot."

Williams's take on the haters? "I love my body, and I would never change anything about it," she says. "I'm not asking you to like my body. I'm just asking you to let me be me. Because I'm going to influence a girl who does look like me, and I want her to feel good about herself."

Williams has been equally vocal about the issue of gender parity in professional tennis. In March, the CEO and director of a big tournament in Indian Wells, California, publicly referred to Williams and her competitors as lady players, saying that they "ride on the coattails of the men," specifically Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. That CEO, Raymond Moore, has since resigned, but only after Williams responded to his comments. "Last year, the women's final at the U.S. Open sold out well before the men's," she said at the time, pointing to a competition in which she was vying for a rare sweep of the season's Grand Slams. "Did Roger play in that final, or Rafa, or any man? I think not."

With poignant verbal smashes that are as uplifting as many of her comebacks on the court, Williams has become an icon of girl power on a stage that transcends the sports arena: championing fellow female athletes, speaking up against sexism and for female empowerment, and throwing her support behind women who are doing the same. "I have this platform that other people don't have," she says. "I think it's important, especially as a woman, to stand up for who you are and what you believe in—and not back down." Even her brief dance number in Lemonade, set to a song called "Sorry," made a statement: one about having the conviction not to be sorry at all. "I was nervous," Williams laughs. "But Beyoncé was impressed. I was like, 'Well, you told me to dance like no one was looking!' "

Some of Williams's closest friends are also her fiercest competitors, like BFF Caroline Wozniacki, who has credited Williams for being an unwavering pillar of support after her engagement to golfer Rory McIlroy was called off in 2014. The role is a recurring one for Williams. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says that after her husband's death last year, she learned that Williams "personifies what it means to be a friend. She called and texted every few days to tell me, 'You have my strength.' She was there through my hardest hours of grief, no matter what she had going on." Williams is also devoted to her family. Of her sister, she says, "Venus is the best. I look up to her, and I always wonder, if I was the older sister, would I have set the good example that she set for me?" The two shared a house until earlier this year, when Serena moved into her own home in an adjacent gated community. She adds, "I hate playing Venus. She's the toughest opponent I've ever faced."

"I'm not asking you to like my body," Williams says. "I'm just asking you to let me be me." Photo by: Mark Seliger

Of course, as an African-American woman at the top of a historically white sport, Williams has long been paving the way for younger athletes both female and male. "I can't say I am the pioneer because it was Althea Gibson, it was Zina Garrison, it was Arthur Ashe, it was so many people before me," she says, referring to some of the first black professional tennis players. But, she adds proudly, "I appreciate being in a position where I was chosen to be a role model. Obviously, being black in tennis wasn't easy, even in the '90s."

Over the years, Williams has become increasingly involved in race, social justice and education issues. Through the Serena Williams Fund, she has built two schools in Africa and one in Jamaica, and helped individuals and communities affected by violence. That cause hits particularly close to home for Williams, whose sister Yetunde Price, a mother of three, was killed in a gang-related Compton shooting in 2003. "All we can do now is help others," says Williams. "It was terrible. If my nieces and nephews didn't have my mom or us, I don't know what they would have done."

Another philanthropic victory came at last year's tournament in Indian Wells. In 2001, when an injured Venus pulled out of the semifinals against her sister at the last minute, crowd members—suspecting their father of fixing the match—booed Serena as she entered the stadium. Williams famously sat out the event for 13 years in a row, returning in 2015. She marked the occasion by raffling off a suite of prizes (her racket, a hitting session) with all proceeds going to the Equal Justice Initiative, an Alabama-based nonprofit that provides legal aid to prisoners who believe they've been wronged by the justice system. Williams raised more than $100,000 for the organization.

Back at her house in Florida, the conversation turns to Williams's future, as her 10-year-old Maltese, Laurelai, and 3-year-old teacup Yorkie, Chip, circle her legs. What will a day in the life of Serena look like in, say, five years? "In five years, I'm on a boat or an island, sketching the latest collection. Maybe there's a baby, maybe a couple, we'll see. I'm done traveling—I'm throwing away my passport," she says dreamily. "Yeah, I'm done with it."

But five years is a long way off. Right now, her focus is on getting that next big win. "This is my heart," says Williams. "This is my blood. I live for this and have for the last 32 years. When I step out on the court, you're going to get all of me." Weeks later, in the days leading up to Wimbledon—the event that will kick off that nonstop season—Williams's outlook is just as confident. "It's going to be the summer of Serena," she says. "I know it."

Styled by, Kate Sebbah; Hair, Ted Gibson at TedGibson.com; Makeup, Matin using Chanel Ultrawear Foundation; Manicure, Andrea Escorcia; Set Design, Cristina Forestieri; Production, Select Services.

Image 1: Custom top and bottoms, Dion Lee [Water], $437; DionLee.com. Orange band, $15; Nike.com. Earrings, Ming Yu Wang, $289; Totokaelo.com. Image 2: Custom top, Adeam, $795; ModaOperandi.com. Bottoms, $50; AllSisters.com. Image 3: Bikini top, Kore Swim, $112; KoreWear.com. Swimsuit, $350; Araks.com.

Photo Credit: Mark Seliger