“10s Whenever” Newsletter Vol. 108

Written by: Staff on 18th January 2014

"10s Whenever" Newsletter Vol. 108

epa04026033 Sam Querrey of the USA in action during his match against Fabio Fognini of Italy in round three of the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 17 January 2014. EPA/DAVID CROSLING AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT |

Baked Australia

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When a well equipped professional tennis player packs for Wimbledon, if he or she is truly prepared, one would find pairs of “grass court” shoes, long and short sleeved “sweaters”, perhaps long sleeved shirts, long tights for women, warm up pants, etc.–all to prepare for the grass and Wimbledon’s famously cold and wet weather.

And when professionals prepare for Australia, apparently there is no special preparation despite the fact that Oz’s weather–the extreme heat–is far more debilitating than London’s damp and cold.

Now everyone knows that in extreme heat it’s best to wear light colored (white) clothing, loose fitting garments and to cover up shoulders, arms and heads. Everyone knows that! Apparently not.

Serena Williams played in 100+ degrees in a deep pink colored outfit with her shoulders exposed to the sun and, and this is the part that gets me, a solid black back to her dress. The better to absorb all the heat possible and to make her as uncomfortable as could be I guess! No wonder she staggered off court after one of her matches and passed on her interview until she had a chance to “recover”. And how do you explain Sam Querrey sensibly attired in long, loose fitting white shorts and a loose white shirt–how do you explain topping this sensible outfit off with a black hat. I guess the black hat, absorbing all the heat it could, offset any benefit Sam could get from his white outfit. Many of the women wore dark colored clothing–tight fitting at that–to absolutely avoid a layer of cooling air between themselves and the fabric–with a good deal of their upper torso.s exposed–instead of protecting themselves with loose fitting white clothing. Why?

Remember Ivan Lendl, the consummate professional, who famously wore a white baseball style hat in the extreme heat with a French Foreign Legion style “cape” covering his ears and neck in extreme heat? No one did that this past week–despite Lendl having a court side seat and coaching Andy Murray this year. Ironically, the ball persons actually did wear a version of Lendl’s “hat cape”–alas, these poor souls had to wear it in a deep red color–therefore making them as hot as possible. The ball persons long sleeved shirts were also in deep red–their arms were protected from the sun, but they roasted as the dark color absorbed as much sun light and heat as possible. Lines people also wore long sleeved shirts–sensible in the extreme sun, but in a medium blue color again absorbing heat to make them as uncomfortable as possible.

With all the talk we hear about “professionalism”, attention to training, details about equipment and all the other things that make today’s tennis professionals truly amazing, there they were, hundreds of them, staggering about in temperatures reaching 120+ degrees on the courts, in direct sunlight for hours and hours, wearing apparel that didn’t do what it could to give them an “edge”. How can this be?

Partially it is “marketing”–the major tennis apparel companies have decided that certain dark colors are “in” for this year and that’s what their charges wore despite the heat. Partially it is that the agents, managers, coaches and players may not be as “professional” as they think they are–they look for every advantage, but ignored the help they could get from their apparel. And some of it is just ignorance–forgetting that it often gets very, very hot in Australia at this time of year and making no plans to deal with it. Well, this time almost everyone was treated to having to play not one, but two matches in these awful conditions. What a shame!

There is much more I could say about Baked Australia. The “heat rules”, the roofs being opened and closed, the fairness of the way the tournament handled things in general and much more. I’ll save that for another day. For today, I just wish someone had dressed more players correctly and taken advantage of what everyone knows about heat and the human body, about science, human experience and most of all, about common sense.

The author, a long time apparel industry executive with involvement in supplying numerous professional tennis players with endorsed apparel to wear on the tour, prefers to be identified as a “Guardian of the Game”.