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INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – Most of the time, as those who pay careful attention to these things will know, Rafael Nadal is basically a collection of old kits when he’s on the practice court.
But not earlier this week.
The Australian Open champion came out in perfectly coordinated kit.
Even the shoes matched. And the warmup jacket.
It was a sight.
It turns out that it was more or less a one-off, because Nadal had come straight from an ATP photo shoot where he was required to sport his finest.
He didn’t bother to change. Then again, he probably has a couple of boxes of the stuff.
It was the same kit he had on Saturday, when he played his opening match at the BNP Paribas Open against American Sebastian Korda.
This week was the first time the ATP has had a comprehensive photo shoot of the players in the more recent gear in over two years, since before the pandemic (nearly 150 players were shot).
(Except in cases where players change clothing sponsors, in which case they have their photographer shoot some updated pics. Félix Auger-Aliassime did that a year ago in Australia, after switching from Nike to adidas in the off-season).
The women, in large part, are even more out of date.
Most of the PR graphics and photos go all the way back to the Nike “faux denim” era. We’re talking … early 2019.
Generally they do these shots at Indian Wells. But of course there was no Indian Wells in March 2020, or March 2021.
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