Serena Williams on Why She’s Thinking Pink for the U.S. Open, From Her Game-Day Look to Her Manicure

There are five winding floors at the Niketown complex in Midtown Manhattan, and all five were brimming with bodies on Friday night. This is what’s commonly known as the Serena Williams effect—complete with throngs of hopeful fans peering down for a glimpse at the reigning queen of tennis from the balconies above. And yet, in a private room before the evening’s fireside chat, the 34-year-old icon appeared remarkably relaxed ahead of her 17th U.S. Open, free from the on- and off-court pressure to be perennially on-point—not only in terms of her athletic ability, but also with the famously head-turning style that she’s made her own.

“This year, I really wanted to bring classic back to tennis,” she says of her latest collaboration with Nike for the Open—a twirling white dress for day matches, a black variation for night, with pops of bold, feminine color flitting throughout. “There are hints of pink in the pleats when I move,” she says with obvious delight. The candy-color shade has been Williams’s favorite since girlhood, and regularly creeps into her beauty routine, too—a petal lip here or cotton candy nail polish there. “I always try to wear it,” she says. “Yesterday, I had a rose-color eyelid, which was fun.”

Rounding out the rest of her current game-day lineup is a low, loose ponytail, a slick of waterproof eyeliner, and a surreally long manicure that winks at her larger-than-life persona—and is, surprisingly, no harder to serve or slice with. “Not at all!” she insists with a laugh. “I definitely make more mistakes typing.” Yet where Williams’s beauty routine has shifted to allow for more freewheeling expression, her fitness approach has been about buckling down and honing in on what she eats in recent years. “It’s about wellness more than anything,” she says. “I want to make sure I’m as healthy as possible, and I think you can really heal yourself through foods—the right foods.”

That means a plant-focused diet packed with fresh-pressed juices and plenty of dark leafy greens, cooked lightly to keep them as bright as possible. “To be able to play as much as we do, you have to take care of your body and that means changing your approach [over time],” she says. “When I was a teenager, I was eating only candy—now I eat only 20 to 50 percent candy,” she jokes. And which sugar-coated treat helped propel a young Williams to greatness? Sour Patch Watermelon chews—the pink ones, of course. Although, “I haven’t had them in forever,” she admits. Surely, a Sour Patch–worthy occasion is not far off.
Serena Williams dances and dishes on one thing she hasn’t mastered:

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