The right to bare arms at the US Open
A battle of the biceps is brewing among young male tennis stars. As the final slam of the year nears its conclusion, some contenders are being inspired by a young Rafael Nadal.
Never has men’s tennis seen a bigger match with fewer sleeves. On Tuesday evening (Wednesday morning AEST) in the US Open, Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, two captivating young Americans vying to be tennis’s next big thing, squared off.
As the latter won through to the semi-finals in a four-set victory, we saw Tiafoe’s acrobatic two-handed backhand, Shelton’s decimating 149 mile-per-hour serve and one thing the two young Americans have in common: bicep-baring tank tops.
The 25-year-old Tiafoe, 20-year-old Shelton and Spain’s 20-year-old prodigy Carlos Alcaraz have charged through the competition thus far at the Open wearing conspicuous “check out these guns” sleeveless tanks as if plucked from Venice Beach. That means three of the eight men’s quarter finalists at the Open have arrived there sans sleeves.
The he-man tanks do allow fans, and crucially, reedier competitors, to clock just how jacked these young guns are. Tennis historically hasn’t been a sport for the absolutely diesel. Consider past titans like Roger Federer and Pete Sampras. Were they fit? Oh, absolutely. Would they get mistaken for a Tennessee Titans tight end? Not quite.
Big Foe (as he is known) and Shelton very well could.
The sleeveless-tee is “a big NFL and gym bro look that might be appealing to pro tennis players now that more of them are hitting the gym,” said Stuart Brumfitt, the editor of Bagel, a new London-based tennis magazine, who has, in addition to playing the sport since he was 5, worked at fashion publications including Fantastic Man and GQ Style. “I mean, who doesn’t want to show off their gains?” At Wimbledon in 2021, back when Tiafoe was still restricted by regular T-shirts, he celebrated his upset victory over Stefanos Tsitsipas by rolling up his sleeves and flexing his biceps, looking very much like a towering prize-fighter at the end of a “Rocky” film. (Perhaps not coincidentally, Alcaraz has said he watches “Rocky” clips to get psyched up before matches.) By embracing the tank, Tiafoe lets opponents feast on his muscles before the match.
Shelton likewise looks like he could squish a tennis ball with his bare hands. One glance at the 6-foot-4, 195 pound, serve specialist in his sleeveless shirts, and you think yeah, okay, I believe that he can hit the ball faster than my car can go before the bottom starts falling out and the windows start cracking. At the conclusion of his efficient victory over fellow Tommy Paul on Sunday, Shelton also turned to the crowd, and like a racket-wielding Popeye, flexed his biceps.
Beyond striking fear in the hearts of their opponents, the tanks have proved to be a polarising style choice this past week, eliciting assessments from commentators, questions from reporters and even joking adjudication from young American star (and apparently part-time fashion critic) Coco Gauff. “Frances is a little bit upset because I said Ben had the better outfit than him,” said Gauff during her post-match press conference on Sunday after besting Caroline Wozniacki. She went on to liken Tiafoe’s look to confetti – and rule that “Carlos looked better.” Indeed, like sleeveless snowflakes, each tank at the Open this year is distinct. Alcaraz has been trouncing the competition in a Nike tank with a Kandinsky-meets-Trix-cereal-box pattern. The no-sleeved look is a notable change up from the kit he wore to win last year’s Open – an orange tee with bright white sleeves.
Tiafoe’s shirt is a similar Nike style in an aquatic blue and orange-flecked motif. (Both athletes are sponsored by Nike.) It’s an echo of the controversial, acid-trip-swirled sleeveless kit he wore during the Australian Open earlier this year.
And Shelton has been charging through his third US Open in a handsome white tank top from his sponsor, On, with a Rothko-esque pink stripe running down its left side.
The tank’s on-court resurgence now proves that even the hallowed grounds of Arthur Ashe Stadium might not be immune to broader off-court fashion trends. “Funnily enough I’ve been seeing this sleeveless and slightly cropped T-shirt look at queer raves for years now, but I’m not sure Ben Shelton or Carlos Alcaraz have been attending many of those,” said Brumfitt.
The weather this week has certainly called for as little clothing as the rules allow. Temperatures in New York are exceeding 90 degrees, turning even the hardiest hard court specialists into puddles of perspiration by the second set.
“You want to be as light as you can on the court,” said Tiafoe during a post-match press conference last week. He explained that he brings as many as 20 shirts to each match and has a trigger finger when it comes to swapping them out. “If I’m a little wet, you just change the tee.” Certainly, the U.S. Open’s relatively lax dress code has allowed the biceps to fly.
For Alcaraz, there is some superstition at play in shedding his sleeves. “I was thinking about Rafa, when he wore that, he won that US Open right?” said Alcaraz, when asked at a press conference earlier this week about his tanked look. He was referring to Spanish tennis titan Rafael Nadal, who won the 2019 US Open in a black tank top. No one at the conference dared to note to Alcaraz that Nadal’s kit was about 97 per cent less garish than what Alcaraz is wearing this week. (Nadal is missing this year’s tournament due to injury.) Indeed, Rafa is tennis’s most storeyed sleeveless wonder. Beginning in the mid-2000s he catapulted to a run of championships at the clay-courted French Open all while wearing a variety of Nike tank tops. An olive green one in 2005, a basic blue in 2006, white with a cyan spike pattern in 2007, back to green in 2008. (Of note: Alcaraz was all of two years old in 2005.) Perhaps looking to ape Nadal’s title streak, a medley of players suddenly shed their sleeves in the late 2000s.
The 2007 US Open alone saw Carlos Moyá, Amer Delić, Diego Hartfield, Stefan Koubek, Robby Ginepri and Alex Kuznetsov going sans sleeves. (A cornflower blue Nike design with white and grey diagonal stripes was that year’s version of Alcaraz/Tiafoe’s funfetti-esque design, worn by a handful of entrants.) Don’t remember most of those names? Can’t blame you! Turns out the tank wasn’t a magic shortcut to title success. By a few years later, most players on the tour fell back to sleeves – including Rafa.
Still, with these sleeveless savants finding success – particularly the current odds on favourite Alcaraz – the tank could fully catch on again. Said Brumfitt, “Alcaraz has become such a huge idol for young people, we’re bound to see this look catching on among all these kids who worship and adore him.”
The Wall Street Journal
