Last year, tennis pro Serena Williams introduced a new jewelry line in collaboration with Indian sightholder KP Sanghvi. Here, the four-time Olympic gold medalist talks to JCK about her vision for Serena Williams Jewelry, why the line had to include a tennis bracelet, and her favorite jewelry piece.

Is there a piece from the collection that feels like a true reflection of your vision for the line—a piece that feels like you?
Absolutely: The heart is something that I’ve always worn. Every match I play, I always wear a heart. In the late ’90s, I wore a really simple heart and [I have been wearing] more elaborate ones of late, so it was really important to me to have a heart in the collection.

Also, I think it would be really wrong not to mention our aspirational word [pieces]. We have one that says Great, one that says Winner. We have Love, we have Sexy, we have Crazy. There are so many different words that really speak to me and what I’m about.

You have a few tennis bracelets in the collection—tell us about your version of the classic.
Being a tennis player, I can’t have a jewelry line and not have a tennis bracelet. You can’t really change a tennis bracelet too much, but we went for it. It definitely has a little more space in between the stones than the average tennis bracelet, where the stones are really close ­together, so we ­wanted to bring that little change to it. We also incorporated this ­[diamond-­accented lobster claw] clasp, which is not ­typical in tennis bracelets.

What is the most treasured piece of jewelry in your personal collection?
There is a piece that my mom gave me when I was young. It was a ring. I still have it. It’s not the fanciest, but it really means a lot to me.

Top: Heart & Arrow earrings in 14k yellow gold with 0.167 ct. t.w. diamonds; $500; serenawilliamsjewelry.com