“IT’S REALLY ABOUT THE ILLUSION. LIKE, YOU CAN WEAR LACE BUT WHAT’S THE POINT. THE ILLUSION OF JUST HAVING BARE SKIN IS DEFINITELY A LOT MORE BEAUTIFUL. THE DESIGN HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE REAR. IT JUST SO HAPPENS THAT I HAVE A VERY WELL-DEVELOPED ONE.”
PARIS — Venus Williams’s serves have long been a big focus of her every match, but never more so than now.
Williams, the world’s No. 2 women’s player, has created quite a stir at the French Open by playing in a lacy, see-through black dress that she designed. Her short, flouncy skirt has photographers snapping furiously at every lunging serve, as the loose, frilly bottom flips upward to display near-sheer, skin-tone undershorts that reveal every curve, particularly from behind.
Photographs of her backside — Is she wearing underwear at all? — have stormed the Internet, much as they did in January, when she wore a yellow dress with a similarly **** look underneath during the Australian Open. Investigations of a personal nature have begun anew.
“It’s really about the illusion,” Williams said after a 6-2, 6-4 second-round victory against Arantxa Parra Santonja of Spain on Wednesday. “Like, you can wear lace, but what’s the point of wearing lace when there’s just black under? The illusion of just having bare skin is definitely, for me, a lot more beautiful.”
Controversial sartorial choices have been a part of tennis practically since the game was invented. The permissible line — the hemline, sure, but mostly the metaphorical one — is broadly interpreted.
The Women’s Tennis Association Tour rulebook states only that players “will be expected to dress and present themselves in a professional manner.”
It continues: “A player shall wear appropriate and clean tennis attire and shall not wear sweatshirts, sweat pants, T-shirts, jeans or cut-offs during matches. A player may be asked to change if the referee deems it necessary. Failure to do so may result in default from a tournament and/or a fine.”
(The issue of “grass court shoes,” including details on the allowable diameter, height, slope and hardness of the “pimples,” consumes most of two full pages.)
No player has been fined for breaking the clothing rule, said Andrew Walker, the tour’s senior vice president for global marketing and communications.
He said that there had been internal discussions about Williams’s outfits, but that they had been deemed appropriate. Besides, during Grand Slam events, the local tournament officials play fashion police, using an almost identically vague rule.
The French Tennis Federation, which runs the French Open, determined that Williams’s dress and undershorts would be allowed. With all the attention they are getting, they may actually be encouraged.
Tennis fashion, so often an oxymoron, stirs chronic debate for both the professional men and women. Rules have not prevented questionable fashion decisions ranging from 1970s-era short shorts, Rafael Nadal’s pirate pants and sleeveless shirts, Roger Federer’s personalized courtside jacket and headbands, and Andre Agassi’s color-splotched shirts and faux hair.
But in tennis fashion, the deepest curiosity usually focuses on women and what they reveal. Suzanne Lenglen, for whom one of the major show courts at Roland Garros is named, arrived at Wimbledon more than 90 years ago, creating a sensation with her bare arms and a calf-length pleated dress. Helen Wills Moody, one of the game’s greatest champions, often wore skirts above her knees and a sporty visor.
In 1949 the American Gertrude Moran wore a short skirt at Wimbledon that intentionally revealed lace-trimmed undershorts. Court-side photographers crouched as low as possible to get a shot up her skirt. Moran, nicknamed Gorgeous Gussy, was appalled at the attention.
“We weren’t talking Frederick’s of Hollywood,” she told The Orlando Sentinel in 1988.
Some things never change. Three years ago at Wimbledon, Tatiana Golovin wore red under her white dress. After some scrutiny, tournament officials, in an official statement, ruled it underwear, not shorts. Red underwear was permissible.
The next year, Maria Sharapova wore a tuxedo-inspired get-up. It broke no rules, not counting those of good taste, according to her second-round opponent, Alla Kudryavtseva.
“It’s very pleasant to beat Maria,” Kudryavtseva said afterward. “Why? I don’t like her outfit. Can I put it this way?”
There have been other sartorial flare-ups. Anne White came to Wimbledon in 1985 wearing a tight, white bodysuit. At the United States Open in 2002, Serena Williams, Venus’s sister and the current No. 1 player, wore a skin-tight, short-shorted number that looked as if it might have been molded for a superhero.
“This is more of a cat suit,” she explained at the time. “It is not a wet suit.”
Bethanie Mattek-Sands is a premier attention-grabber. She wore a sort of cowboy hat at the United States Open in 2005, and said on Monday that she was fined $10,000 for it. Tim Curry, a spokesman for the United States Tennis Association, said Wednesday that the fine was $1,000. But Mattek-Sands has had referees approve and disapprove of her outfits before taking the court. “It’s really a hazy line,” she said. “So I think it’s cool when people push it.”
She has toned down her attire — now 25, she is more into tattoos, she said — but gave Williams’s lacy black dress an enthusiastic endorsement. Photographs of Williams on the Internet from the opening day of the French Open, she pointed out, gave tennis attention it probably would not receive otherwise.
Mattek-Sands said she tired of seeing Tour players looking and dressing so much alike.
“You see two girls, blond hair, wearing the exact same thing head to toe,” she said. “If I can’t tell them apart, no way a fan’s going to tell them apart. So it just brings, you know, something unique to the game.”
That is the attitude of the women’s tour, too. Players are brands, of a sort, and they can dress as they and their sponsors see fit, provided ... well, that is the uncertain part.
Williams seems unbound by convention. She enjoyed the mystery that surrounded her is-she-wearing-any Australian Open outfit, and she took delight in knowing that her latest design, meant to invoke wonder, had done far more than that.
The tight-fitting top has thin red straps and red piping for a corset-style look. Her push-up black bra and straps peeked out from underneath. She capped the ensemble on a cool and breezy Wednesday with a white visor.
A French reporter told Williams that fans surveyed in the stands mostly approved, and that one man said it was “good for my imagination,” although it does not require much.
Her sister Serena showed Williams a photograph from behind. Williams said she did not know that the undershorts would match her skin so well. And she is not about to change now.
“The design has nothing to do with the rear,” Williams said. “It just so happens that I have a very well-developed one.”
Posted By: Richard Kigel
Thursday, May 27th 2010 at 11:25AM
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