The sports brand ASICS brought together several of its strongholds this Wednesday in Puente Romano (Marbella), in an act in which they met Corentin Moutet, Harriet Dart, Jasmine Paolini, Petra Marcinko, Àlex Corretja and the flagship of the Novak Djokovic brand. One of the star points of the event was the presentation of the ‘ASICS Court FF3 Novak’, custom-made shoes made for the Serbian player with direct participation in its development of the twenty-one times Grand Slam champion.
Djokovic y ASICS They have worked together for two years, from 2020 to the end of 2022, to design special shoes that the Serbian player will wear during the next year in both aspects, a blue model and a red one. To carry them out, the brand has had all the data transmitted by its Institute of Sports Sciences, which studies all the parameters involved in each movement to adapt the shoes to the player’s foot in the best possible way.
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“In the case of Djokovic, we look for the best combination between stability and speed“, explained Renee Zandbergen, senior manager of ASICS. “To make this new model we have achieved a better balance between stability and flexibility of the foot,” he said. The key to achieving this balance occurs with a sole made with three independent pieces with the aim of strengthening the support of the heel and thereby providing better support to the foot while allowing the easy performance of all the movements that the Serbian player usually performs on the court.
The new ASICS and Novak Djokovic shoe models for 2023
ASICS does not only study the movements in the displacements. The brand has a large team that analyzes the serves, forehands and backhands of the players to study the positions of the supports and see what part of the shoe should be reinforced based on the characteristics of each player’s foot. In addition, the brand’s models have evolved with a ‘anti-breeze’ component Designed to reduce the effect of sweating on the foot of the players.
“All the steps we have taken to configure the new shoes have been very professional”Djokovic explains. “When we started the process, I explained that I didn’t like some components and the brand has changed them until this final version”, ‘Nole’ said about his new shoes. “We followed a long journey because we wanted them to adapt to each type of surface,” he detailed.
“Flexibility, speed and stability are important for my tennis and I needed a shoe that would allow me to have those abilities to execute changes of direction,” Djokovic said.
Due to the conditions of his game, Djokovic needs shoes with a greater ability to slip, a movement that is usually very damaging to the ankles unless the footwear available offers great flexibility. “I come from a family of skiers and for me it’s an acquired movement. Flexibility, speed and stability are important for my tennis and I needed some shoes that would allow me to have those skills to execute the changes of direction”, said ‘Nole’.
Another problem ASICS had to work on was Djokovic’s sweaty feet. “Changing shoes is like changing rackets, a process that raises many doubts,” acknowledged the Serbian. “But with the previous equipment I had to change my socks a lot on the court on days that were very hot“, he used as one of the reasons to bet on the change. “We had to look for shoes that allow perspiration without the foot losing adaptability,” he said. A two-year job that will see the light of day at the beginning of the new season.
It is not an isolated process: Iga Swiatek or Matteo Berrettini also have custom-made shoes
ASICS’ effort with Novak Djokovic is not an isolated case. The brand also works conscientiously with Every Swiatek and with Matthew Berrettini to make your slippers. In this sense, both will soon carry the ‘Gel-Resolution 9’, an evolution of the previous model 8 designed specifically to promote lateral movements along the baseline.
ASICS works with a wide variety of sketches to analyze all the parameters related to the movements of the feet.
The objective with the model of the Polish tennis player and the Italian is reduce recovery time at the bottom of the track from lateral movements to the central position, from which there are more chances to dominate the exchanges. As shown, the stoppage time after a displacement, that is, the time used to recover the position after reaching a ball, was 0.416 seconds on average with the ‘Gel-Resolution 8’. Now, with the 9, ASICS expects this to be 0.397 seconds. It is a minimal difference in the eyes of the beholder, but represents a reduction of 4.6% of the total time employed in the movement.
that time of recovery after executing the movement also allows you to reduce the time needed to regain the central position at the bottom of the track. With the Gel-Resolution 8, the average time needed to perform these movements was 1,843 seconds. With the new model, it is estimated that it will be 1,809, a gain of 1.8% of the total time. In short, nothing is improvised in each of the components of ASICS shoes.
