Want to know what your favorite players are wearing? Thanks to a new series from the Hologic WTA Tour's social media team, now you can. "Off Court 'Fits," showcasing the personal style of the tour's stars, debuted this week in Toronto.
The idea spawned from the NBA and WNBA's popular "tunnel 'fits" series, which has showcased basketball players' unique personalities and fashion picks on social media as they arrive at the playing arena for game day and walk to the locker room. The WNBA in particular has embraced the content series as a means of getting new fans into the game.
“[M]any of them aren’t just basketball fans, so the first thing that draws them in is our appearance—fashion, beauty, hair, whatever—and then they’re like, ‘Oh, and they play basketball? OK, let me watch the game,’ ” Dijonai Carrington, a shooting guard for the Connecticut Sun, told Harper's Bazaar last year.
“In the past, I feel like being an athlete and a dog on the court did not ever overlap with being into beauty or fashion. Either you were playing sports or you were modeling. But now, you’re seeing a lot of intersection, which is great.”
Top players on the women's tennis tour feel the same way.
"I'm the one who said that we should do this!" Coco Gauff said during the National Bank Open. "I love posting my outfits. The past few Grand Slams I've done it. I have my own photographer come and take my pictures.
"It is something that I think will grow the sport because people love fashion and sports, and ... it'll be cool to do it."
Logistically, bringing the concept to tennis presents some challenges. A tennis player's media commitments are much more fluid than that of a basketball player, for which games begin and end at a set time; weather is never a factor in indoor arenas; and a post-game press conference, generally, takes place on a regular schedule.
But that didn't stop an enthusiastic response from Toronto's player field in the early days of the tournament. Participants in the series' included Grand Slam champions Bianca Andreescu, Naomi Osaka and Aryna Sabalenka, Canadian favorites Leylah Fernandez, Rebecca Marino and Marina Stakusic, and Marta Kostyuk and Ons Jabeur.
Anastasia Potapova and Alycia Parks joined in, too, accompanied by their furry friends.
"I think it's really cool. It gives a different vibe," Andreescu said. "Obviously, we are athletes, but we have a personality outside of the court, and we're human at the end of the day, so showcasing more of that helps."
