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Serena Williams Talks Befriending Her Rival In VOGUE, Speaks On Forgiveness Big congratulations to Serena Williams who covers the April 2015 issue of VOGUE magazine. Doesn’t she look beautiful? The cover story focuses largely on Serena’s friendship with tennis rival Caroline Wozniacki but also touches on her relationship with her sister and how she pushed herself to be more forgiving and return to Indian Wells tournament after being boo’ed. Check out the excerpts below via VOGUE : On Serena’s Role Helping Caroline Heal After Broken Engagement: “My phone was going crazy,” Wozniacki remembers. “But I didn’t want to talk to anyone.” Most people got the message and stopped trying. But Serena Williams isn’t most people. “I kept calling,” Williams says unapologetically. Wozniacki smiles at the memory. “First she texted, ‘If you don’t pick up, I am going to fly to Monaco.’ And then, ‘If you don’t answer the door, I am going to knock it down.’ So I thought, OK, I better answer the phone. And I am so glad I did. She wasn’t pitying me, like a lot of people were. I mean, it’s not like anyone died. I was in shock, but she was really helpful because she had been through it before. She didn’t sugarcoat it, and she didn’t look down on me. She was really there for me when I needed her the most, and that’s why I think our friendship is so strong now.” “I was impressed with how strong she was,” Williams says. “And you know, there will be other engagement parties.” She pauses a beat. “Many.” “Let’s just put an end to this myth that women players cannot be friends,” Williams says. “We can!” Annie Leibowitz had them cakes poppppppin’! On Her Return To Indian Wells: Finally, you can see it in her recently announced decision to go back to Indian Wells, a tournament she had vowed to boycott permanently after the largely white, largely senior audience booed the then–nineteen-year-old player throughout an entire match. The crowd had believed that Venus had pulled out of a match at the last minute to make sure the two did not play each other in the semifinals. It is a testament to her grit that Serena won on that difficult day, but she spent the next several hours weeping in the locker room. “Say whatever you want about me and Venus,” Williams would later write in her autobiography, “at the end of the day we were just a couple of kids, trying to do our best.” Injuries come and go, but that wound refused to heal. Every year, officials at the tournament begged her to come back. Every year, she said no. Even a new owner, billionaire Larry Ellison, and his multimillion-dollar makeover of the tournament—there’s now a Nobu—did not sway her. Then, about a year and a half ago, Williams spent Christmas vacation reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. His account of his struggles caused her to reflect on how she was walking through her own life. “That’s when I realized I had to go back,” she says. “I always talk about forgiveness, but I needed to actually show it. It was time to move on.” After she made the announcement in February, you could practically hear the tennis world sigh with relief. Read the full story HERE Vogue/Annie Leibowitz

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Making It Rain On Them Hoes: Serena Williams Covers VOGUE Magazine