Serena Williams is on the cover of Allure magazine's Body + Mind issue. She opens up to discuss success, self-love, the importance of standing up for oneself and what she hopes to teach her daughter about beauty and strength.

Our forever GOAT is giving us all kinds of Black girl magic and melanin glow. The 23-time Grand Slam winner posed on the cover of the magazine wearing a brown cashmere Jacquemus high-split dress with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, serving greatness.

See the powerful cover below.

Serena talks about her and her sister’s continued success saying, “Venus and I started out being successful, continued to be successful, and we were also unapologetically ourselves. We were not afraid to wear braids. We weren’t afraid to be Black in tennis. And that was different.”

She discusses their mom teaching them the importance of loving themselves saying, “I think my mom instilled in us to be confident women, to really believe in ourselves, be proud of our heritage, our hair and our bodies. That was something that was really important for her to teach us,” she continues, “I’m definitely teaching it to my daughter.” 

The 37-year-old wife and mother also opened up about meeting her husband, Alexis Ohanian.

Serena told Allure that she was focused on her career instead of finding love when she met Alexis but took great advice from Oprah when it came to finding true love, saying, “Oprah said, ‘Never let anyone dim your light.’ That really stuck with me. Alexis doesn’t dim my light, he doesn’t try to dim my light. He puts me in the light, even if I don’t want to be. He pushes me to further points I never thought about.”

Serena and Alexis share a 15-month-old daughter, Olympia, in which Serena discusses wanting her little girl to be strong. “I want her [Alexis] to know that being strong is never easy. Not in this world, we are living in,” she told Allure. “Standing up for yourself is not going to be easy, but it’s always eventually respected.”

Written by Ashley Ford and photographed by Tanya And Zhenya Posternak

For the remainder of the interview, please head to Allure.com