Serena Williams to be Featured in 2016 Pirelli Calendar Following U.S. Open

Pirelli, the Italian sports car tire company, released a calendar known as "The Cal" every year. The calendar features 12 artful and provocative portraits of the world's most beautiful and influential women. U.S. Open star Serena Williams has officially made that list, and will be featured in next year's 2016 Pirelli Calendar.

Williams made the official announcement via Twitter, and Pirelli confirmed the tweet:

@serenawilliams @annieleibovitz we can't wait to share the new calendar! Thank you ladies for being part of our special project!

— Pirelli USA (@PirelliUSA) September 19, 2015

This year's calendar installment for Pirelli was shot by renowned photographer, Annie Leibovitz. As per Yahoo News, she has shot many covers for magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. Leibovitz is also known for her family portrait shot of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, featured on the April 2014 Vogue cover, as well as her recent shot of Williams in this year's April cover of Vogue.

Shooting Williams is most definitely a great opportunity for both Williams and Pirelli, especially considering the impact Williams is making in the fashion world. She recently hosted her own New York Fashion Week show earlier this week, where Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour was sitting front row alongside Williams' current love interest, rapper Drake.

As reported by Forbes, "The Cal" was shot in July, and will be revealed in its entirety in November. Usually the calendar's shooting locations vary from the Bahamas to the rooftops of Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. But for the past two years (last year and this year), the calendar was shot inside a New York studio as opposed to a tropical location.

According to Harper's Bazaar, normally, the 12 women Pirelli asks to appear in their calendar tend to be style icons and supermodels. But for 2016, the first star set to appear is an American sports legend. The other features in the calendar remain unknown, so who's to say if Serena Williams is the sole female athlete in the calendar or not. But it seems as though she probably is since she's the only member of the cast whose name was revealed.