Serena Williams Reveals How She Struggled Growing Up Alongside Beautiful Sister Venus

We've already seen her on court in a striking black catsuit. Pictured running in another skin-tight all-in-one – this time in a rainbow of colours – Serena Williams clearly isn't shy of outfits that scream: Look at me.

But the 23-time Grand Slam champion hasn't always been a picture of confidence.

The tennis star has revealed how she struggled growing up alongside her 'thin, tall and beautiful' sister Venus.

It has taken the 36-year-old time to accept her body – but she now sees it as her 'weapon'.


She told Harper's Bazaar magazine: 'It was hard for me... 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.'

In 2004, Miss Williams said she wanted to lose weight and get down to a size 4 – a UK size 8. But she told the magazine, for whom she posed in a variety of eyecatching outfits: '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.'

The sportswoman, who gave birth last year to her first child, Alexis Olympia, added: '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'.