Princess Diana wearing a light pink cardigan with a pleated skirt and plain shirt at the Vanderbilt Racquet Club in London before a doubles match with David Verney (Lord Willoughby De Broke), Steffi Graf and club secretary Charles Swallow on June 10, 1988. (Image: Getty Images)
Archival footage
The fashion on the tennis court used to be a topic of conversation from time to time. A look into the archive.
The season recently opened on the public tennis courts in Zurich. Once an elite sport, the sport has become increasingly open and accessible since the late 1960s. A tennis court can now be rented in the city of Zurich for CHF 15 an hour. The obligation to join a club in order to have access to places is also disappearing more and more frequently. This has a positive influence on the number of hobby players.
Tennis as a professional sport has been around since the 1968s. The year of major social upheavals marked the beginning of the so-called “Open Era”, to which the names of major Grand Slam tournaments, such as the French Open in Paris, refer to today. What is exciting about tennis is not only the history and today’s possibilities in the leisure sector; fashion, which sometimes made scandalous and often spectacular statements, also made headlines time and again over the years.
So let’s focus here on scandalously entertaining creations and timeless tennis chic – not only among professional players, but also among prominent casual players.
The Russian player Maria Sharapova (b. 1978) in 2008 in London at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships. Her ensemble of tuxedo-like waistcoat, jacket and shorts was a stylish alternative to the tennis skirt in the player’s wardrobe, even if not everyone saw it that way. (Image: Getty Images)
The American tennis player Andre Agassi (1970), following the fashion dictate of the 1980s, in stone washed jeans and velcro sneakers in 1988 at the French Open in Roland Garros. (Image: Getty Images)
American tennis player Anne White (1961) at Wimbledon at the Lawn Tennis Championships in 1985. The bodysuit worn here was not exactly well received; she was asked to wear a more appropriate tennis outfit the next day. The public interest in this bodysuit was so great that Anne White appeared on the front pages of six London newspapers the following day. (Image: Getty Images)
Tracy Austin (1962) of USA during the 1981 Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon. She wears a flower embroidered dress and buttery yellow ruffled panties. Not to forget her bobble socks. (Image: Tony Duffy/Allsport/Getty Images)
British singer Elton John (b. 1947) wearing a statement sweater and a bright red shirt at the Robert F. Kennedy Pro Celebrity Tennis Tournament on August 23, 1975 at Forest Hills Stadium in New York. For a long time, the Robert F. Kennedy Pro Celebrity tennis tournaments were also seen as a catwalk for presenting the stylish looks of players. (Image: Getty Images)
Partner look: The Grand Slam champions and doubles partners Björn Borg (born 1956) and Rod Laver (born 1938) in bright red polo shirts in 1975 at the US Open at the West Side Tennis Club in New York. (Image: Getty Images)
Arthur Ashe (1943-1993) was the first black American tennis player to be nominated for the Davis Cup team. Classically in a polo shirt with yellow accents and shorts – and of course with sweatbands as was customary at the time – he is here playing at the 1974 US Open men’s tennis championships at the Forest Hills West Side Tennis Club in the borough of Queens in New York City. (Image: Getty Images)
Flower power in 1973 on the tennis court: The American Chris Evert (born 1954) here in Wimbledon, where she made it to the final but did not win yet. (Image: Getty Images)
This tennis event in 1973 went down in history not because of the clothes, but as the legendary “Battle of the Sexes II”. American tennis player Billie Jean King (b. 1943) took on self-proclaimed chauvinist and macho Bobby Riggs (1918-1995), who said women couldn’t play tennis. Riggs was one of the most famous tennis players of the 1930s and 1940s. Over 30,000 watched the match in the stadium; an estimated 90 million viewers are said to have been in front of the screens worldwide. King clearly won the game 6:4, 6:3 and 6:3. (Image: Getty Images)
Joan Kennedy (b. 1936), wife of Democratic politician Edward Moore Kennedy (1932-2009), dressed classically in white and snappy sunglasses, during the 1972 Robert F Kennedy Pro Celebrity Tennis Tournament at Forest Hills Stadium in New York. The annual tournament with prominent players was extremely entertaining and fashionably always at least as surprising. (Image: Getty Images)
Australian John Newcombe (b. 1944) and American Stan Smith (b. 1946) enter Center Court at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship on July 3, 1971 in London. Stan Smith is also the namesake for the Stan Smith tennis shoe developed in 1971 by the sporting goods manufacturer Adidas, which still enjoys great popularity today (especially off the tennis court). (Image: Getty Images)
The American tennis player Julie Heldman (1945) poses in London in 1965 in a classic white tennis dress, but with eye-catching ruffled socks and ruffled panties. (Image: Getty Images)
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003), screen and stage star, plays an unorthodox backhand during a 1940 friendly at Merion Cricket Club in Philadelphia. She is wearing elegant, wide-cut trousers with a blouse or polo shirt, tank top and cardigan. (Image: Getty Images)
In 1936, the Brit Fred J. Perry (1909–1995) played in long, wide-cut trousers and a polo shirt, as was customary at the time. Fred J. Perry became famous with polo shirts when he founded his fashion company in 1952. (Image: Getty Images)
