The Olympics are a chance to display national pride and therefore it was fascinating to see how the top tennis pros and the various clothing manufacturers, i.e. Nike, adidas, Fila, Reebok, Yonex showed their patriotism… at least from a fashion perspective! For Nike, which doesn’t usually allow its players to wear sponsor patches or anything besides the Nike swoosh on their clothing, the focus seemed to be on country colors accented by small country flags on the left chest. For example, Roger Federer wore a bright red shirt with a small Swiss flag; Rafael Nadal wore a red and mustard yellow accented top with a small Spanish flag; and Chinese star, Li Na, who upset Venus Williams, had a red Nike shirt with the Chinese flag, as well as a pattern on the back that seemed like
Chinese characters. Meanwhile,
Serena Williams and
James Blake wore variations on red, white and blue Nike outfits with a small
United States flag. Some players had their country’s name written on the back of their outfit while the shirt itself didn’t reflect the respective country’s colors, e.g.
Novak Djokovic’s adidas shirt and Gold Medalist Elena Dementieva’s white Yonex dress. Conversely,
Argentine star, David Nalbandian's Yonex shirt featured his country’s colors similar to what he’s worn during
Davis Cup ties. In contrast,
Russian, Svetlana Kuznetsova didn’t seem to have anything especially Russian about her Fila outfit and the same was true for
Serbian star, Jelena Jankovic’s Reebok dress. Although both outfits featured some coloring that’s included in their country’s flag, the outfits didn’t seem to be “country attire.” The biggest fashion statement seemed to be made by the
French players including Gael Monfils (endorses Nike) and Alize Cornet (endorses Lacoste) who wore the official adidas outfits which were essentially a French tricolor with blue, white and red panels, as well as the words “France” emblazoned across the Olympics rings on the left chest. Clearly, national pride ranks pretty high for these French players who shed their endorsed “duds” for the Olympic games… touché!
