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During Wimbledon this year, Serena Williams got “body shamed.” Unlike the usual racist crap that gets thrown at her, at Wimbledon, the complaints were oddly specific: the BBC received actual complaints about Serena’s visible nipples. When I wrote about it, I admitted that I’m looking at Serena’s boobs a little bit too when she’s playing. Most tennis players are small-breasted, and Serena is curvy, and I always wonder what kind of sports bra situation she has going on. I mean, I have to wear two bras at the gym, and I don’t exert myself half as much as Serena. While the nip-complaints were stupid, it seems like a lot of us were wondering about her bra situation. And now we know: she’s worn an Australian-brand bra for years. The brand is Berlei, and it’s being introduced at Macy’s this year. These photos are from an appearance Serena did at Macy’s last Thursday. Serena did a promotional photo-op wearing an open jacket and an exposed Berlei bra! And she worked the sh-t out of that ensemble!

There’s something as near and dear to tennis champ Serena Williams as the many, many trophies she’s racked up — the sports bras she’s worn for those victories.

“I can’t get rid of them! Even though I don’t need them anymore, I’m not gonna throw them away,” Williams reveals to PeopleStyle. And the athlete actually devotes a sizable amount of space to store her sports bras. “I have a whole section for them in my closet because I have my practice ones, too.”

A common denominator in her personal collection? Most if not all of them are created by Australian intimates brand Berlei. Williams, its brand ambassador for several years, became a fan after her mother discovered the bras over a decade ago. Immediately, they were a game-changer, the athlete explains.

“When I first started, [other female athletes] were very athletic [but had] just very flat, very straight bodies, and I had this different body. Especially [for] someone with a larger bust, you really want to minimize the amount of movement.”

Williams had found a winner in the line, but because they weren’t stateside, every time that she’d visit the country, she’d “buy 30 bras to last the whole year” — until now. On Thursday, the U.S. Open-bound pro took a break from practice to celebrate its US arrival. The intimates brand launched in Macy’s and on macys.com. The collection, which ranges from $35 to $68, naturally includes Williams’ go-to model for competition, the SF3 High Impact (there are four levels of support, ranging from Low to Extreme Impact), as well as her favorite blue colorways.

“My eye is really with the lingerie look, and I feel you really get that in the blue tone. I’m really attracted to that.” What Williams loves most about the collaboration? That it’s approach isn’t one-size-fits-all. “We actually try to design things that really minimizes that not just for one particular type of woman but for all women.”

[From People]

Serena Williams can sell me a lot of things, but this is probably one of the best endorsement/ambassadorships in her profitable stable of advertisers. Because if I trust any athlete to sell me a bra, I trust Serena. If she swears by this brand, I’ll look into it. As for Serena hording her old “winner” bras… I understand that too. I have this one disgusting minimizer that I wore to the gym for several years, and I just can’t bring myself to throw it away. I might need it again, you never know! But I sort of think Serena sees those “winning” bras as trophies too. It’s just a little athletic superstition. I bet she keeps all of the lucky shoes and tops she wore for her wins too.

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Photos courtesy of Pacific Coast News, WENN, Getty.
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