Fed's Fashion Week Celebration

So you hold off a feisty young gun in the U.S. Open final, nabbing your 12th Grand Slam title and a $2.4 million paycheck in the process. How do you celebrate? Well, if you're Roger Federer, you hop in a town car with Anna Wintour and hightail it to a fashion show! That's right, FedEx's victory lap led him right to the front row of Oscar de la Renta's spring show in New York Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours after he closed the door on Novak Djokovic. Sheesh, that Rog sure does love him some fashion!

Tennis Chic on the Catwalks

A quick dispatch from the spring fashion shows in New York. At Michael Kors on Sunday afternoon, right around the time Novak Djokovic was letting his first set point evaporate into thin air, this bold nod to looking chic on the court appeared on the runway. The girl's visor is a little outre, but the overall message is fun. Could this pointed opener have been designed to appease Vogue editor Anna Wintour, who undoubtedly would have preferred to be sitting in Federer's box out in Flushing Meadows rather than on a bench in the fashion show tents?

Leave the Runways to the Pros

This unfortunate image comes from a silly fashion show held at the Rogers Cup in Montreal over the weekend. Even if James Blake is among the most handsome gents on the tour, the runway is no place for him. There's a reason he gets paid to run around tennis courts and models get paid to run around catwalks. Unless it's really your thing, there's simply no way to strut in front of the cameras while wearing a gaudy suit with any measure of dignity. And who's his friend? Presumably a local Canadian "model" who wasn't booked for her regular mall gig that evening.

Sayonara, Samurai Wrap!

Time for a little ATP fashion police. I know all the hard-working pros out on the tour don't have all the time in the world to worry about their appearances, but there is one quick and easy step that many of them could take to get an instant image upgrade. I'm talking about banishing the omnipresent tennis headwrap. These little strips of fabric are not hot, they aren't sexy and they don't have an ounce of swashbuckling, swaggering appeal. They're just silly (and sometimes borderline gross). Between their stringy long hair and pirate-worthy headgear, half the pros look like sporty cousins of Captain Jack Sparrow. So let's all ditch the rags, fellas. It might just be the first step towards getting a proper haircut!

Fuggly Frames

As any avid tennis player, or racqonteur, with more than a smidge of taste can attest, shopping for tennis gear sometimes brings to mind a Soviet-era dearth of options. Picture a politburo of mean, narrow-minded designers locked away in the depths of Nike or Adidas hammering out edicts on the approved shades of white. Why, for instance, do all tennis sunglasses have to look like sci-fi costume fodder? Memo to Bolle and the gang: banish all of the following from your "inspiration" boards: UFOs, Pontiac Aztecs, Transformers, satellite dishes.