Skip to Content
Newsletter

A Dress Made of Three Million Feathers

[vc_empty_space height="5px"]

By AJ Eccles

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

As Australian Open social channels began to release images of Aryna Sabalenka’s championship photo shoot, something in the universe shifted. It was a communal, psycho-spiritual thing. Synapses in the brains of tennis fans began to fire again, as if 13 sleepless nights of Aussie tennis had simply fallen away. There was nothing now but the photo shoot. Life was, suddenly and mercifully, a pink dress and a gondola.

Social media lit up immediately. Fashion divides.

[vc_empty_space height="10px"][vc_empty_space height="15px"]

2023 Australian Open: Women

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

2023 Australian Open: Women
The best of friends.

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

Sabalenka has recently become a master at repairing things. Her record at majors. Her serve. Few of us realized champions’ photo shoots were also in desperate need of a makeover. They are mundane fixer-uppers, and Aryna is exactly the right woman for the job. In Melbourne, Sabalenka opted for a puff-shoulder baby-doll pink dress, with floral frills splashed whimsically from collar to hem, and a sharp-heeled startle of electric blue on her feet. It was not the first time a champion had been photographed riding a gondola at Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, but Aryna reinvigorated the form. Posing with her hands framing her face and staring fiercely into the lens as if challenging you to a rematch, Sabalenka could convincingly have invented the very concept of a gondola ride that morning.

This got me wondering what other photographic confections may be in store if Sabalenka were to continue a run at the majors. At Roland-Garros, she could scale the scaffolding at Notre Dame, poised atop metal girders in billowing lavender tulle reminiscent of the fields of Provence. In rainy London, why not adorn a yellow raincoat dress and pose with the Venus Rosewater Dish on the roof of a black cab, as if Paddington Bear were a Spice Girl? Here in New York, Sabalenka could lift the trophy on Saturday night and head to Prospect Park on Sunday for a plate of duck fat fries at Smorgasburg, allowing gravy drippings to elegantly paint a crisp white pantsuit.

[vc_empty_space height="10px"]

2023 Australian Open: Women
Champagne wishes.

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

2023 Australian Open: Women
Whatever you do, don't step on them.

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

Perhaps these local adventures ring trivial, but tennis needs them. Though on-site attendance remained healthy, the TV viewing figures for the Australian Open this year were paltry. It’s unclear if Break Point—Netflix’s documentary that followed a select group of players on tour in 2022—has garnered enough interest to be renewed for a second season. Tennis needs a fresh crop of characters, and Sabalenka is dynamic on and off the court.

Observing Sabalenka during her exceptional run in Melbourne, I noted for the first time the excessive disgust with which she greets mistakes; her eyes rolling so far back in her head she comes dangerously close to injuring her neck. It dawned on me in that moment that Sabalenka is among tennis’ best embodiments of camp, that magnetic spirit Susan Sontag once described as “a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers.” This metaphorical dress would, incidentally, sit splendidly on Aryna in Melbourne next year.

Marketed properly, characters like Sabalenka can make an audience tune in. Not just for the matches, but for the surrounding ephemera that transform an occasional viewer into a devoted fan. Because the next time Aryna Sabalenka wins a major—and she will win another major—won’t you be excited to wake up the next morning and see what fresh delight she’ll serve in the photo-call?

[vc_empty_space height="10px"]

TENNIS-AUS-OPEN
With all due respect to Caroline Wozniacki, she didn't bring nearly the same élan to this project.

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]

2023 Australian Open: Women
See.

[vc_empty_space height="15px"]Above: Aryna Sabalenka takes the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup on a pleasure cruise. (All photos Getty) [vc_column width="1/6"][vc_tweetmeme share_via="racqetmagazine"][vc_column width="1/6"][vc_facebook type="button_count"][vc_column width="1/6"][vc_column width="1/6"][vc_column width="1/6"][vc_column width="1/6"][vc_empty_space height="45px"][vc_column width="1/4"][vc_column width="1/2"]

NOW AVAILABLE

The New Melbourne
Parq Tee

melbourne-parq-new-back

[vc_btn title="BUY NOW" style="outline" shape="square" color="success" size="lg" align="center" button_block="true" link="url:https%3A%2F%2Fracquetmag.com%2Fproduct%2Fmelbourne-parq-tee%2F|title:BUY%20NOW||"][vc_column width="1/4"]

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Racquet

Back on the Ranch

In 1957, John Gardiner raised the bar at a tennis resort in Carmel. There's no one left who can reach it.

October 22, 2025

Shanghai Masters Was a Mirror Held up to China

Between the brand activations and choreographed energy, it felt like modern China itself: futuristic and polished; still striving to assert its place on the world stage.

October 16, 2025

Have Padel will Travel

Padel has emerged as a more-approachable alternative to tennis, drawing in a vast customer base eager for a sport that eschews the traditional formality often associated with tennis clubs. This shift speaks to a broader opportunity in presenting a warm front door that’s wide open for newcomers; Tennis could stand to take note.

October 10, 2025

Tennis by Sea

In which a never-cruiser cruises, crushes balls, converts.

October 8, 2025

Roscoe Tanner’s Second Serve: The ’80s Bad Boy in Teeny Tacchinis

We talked with Grand Slam winner and former world no. 4 Roscoe Tanner—at one time everyone’s favorite bad boy—about his time on tour with Borg and Ashe, getting out on the Champions Tour [Jim Courier: please make it happen], and tiny shorts. His new book, Second Serve, reconciles past mistakes (and there were quite a few) with what he’s learned since. 

October 7, 2025

Is Anyone Having Any Fun?

At this point, who is going to be able to make it through this meat grinder of a season? Do the the tour finals still matter no matter how many friends they lose, or people they leave dead and bloodied and dying along the way? Plus: No matter who REALLY started the conspiracy theories about courts getting slower (looking at you, Roger), you can count on Alex Zverev to whine about it.

October 6, 2025
See all posts