YOU would be forgiven for thinking you had front row seats at a Paris fashion runway rather than courtside at this year’s French Open.
The tennis couture displayed by the women has left nothing to the imagination and left fans to ask the question ``Why?’’
Has women’s tennis become so boring that the players feel they have to wear provocative costumes or eye catching—and just plain wrong—outfits to get attention?
Take Venus William’s latest fashion (disaster). A black, lace plunging neckline tunic with red decorative trim and – nude underwear.
She calls it an ``illusion’’ but for the TV viewers at home, and I daresay courtside, there is no mistaking it.
It is a brown backside, albeit covered in nude knickers. There is no illusion or optical tricks being played.
That outfit and her logic of ``wanting to create an illusion’’ is more appropriate in a boudoir or on The Golden Mile in Kings Cross than on a tennis court.
Nobody cares that the skirts ride up and you get a glimpse of the derriere, but why the need for nude underwear? I thought the whole point of tennis was to keep your eye on the ball.
Yesterday when asked by a bunch of mystified sports journalists why she thought it was appropriate to wear skin coloured underwear, Venus replied: ``I don’t think it’s rude in any way.’’
``The outfit is about illusion, and that’s been a lot of my motif this year –illusion.
``These days I just have a lot of fun with my designs and designing and doing different things.’’
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on whether you are a fan of the naked illusion, Venus has admitted she has up to eight of these costumes.
Newcomer American Bethanie Mattek-Sands has taken to wearing a boob tube, a cowboy hat and now knee high socks.
While I applaud the Williams sisters and Mattek-Sands for their individuality and attempts to make the game more entertaining, it’s time they focus on the one thing everyone pays to see – that green fuzzy ball and the skill of driving it across a tennis court.
Call me conservative and boring but what was wrong with the good old fashioned white shirt and skirt?
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