Tennis Is Becoming Fashion’s Most Influential Sport

How tennis is shaping men’s fashion in 2025

Tennis has always been about performance under pressure, but in 2025, the pressure extends beyond the baseline. The men’s game, long a symbol of discipline and precision, is now being drawn into the vocabulary of fashion, where optics and narrative matter as much as forehands and backhands. No pairing embodies this new chapter more clearly than Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, whose rivalry feels destined to unfold in scorelines and in photographs, podium shots, and the uncanny repetition of their wardrobes.

At this year’s US Open final, Carlos emerged the victor in both senses of the word. His tracksuit, in a deep, jewel-like shade, seemed almost ceremonial beside the trophy. Jannik, in a warmer, less forgiving color, mirrored the silhouette. Together, they looked like runway doubles cast to show the same look in two palettes: one striking and one subdued.

It wasn’t a one-off. Across Paris, Rome, and New York, the season has delivered a series of unintentional twinning moments: rugby tops in the spring, dark zip-ups in early summer, now contrasting jewel tones in late summer. It’s become part of their story, whether they like it or not. Two of the sport’s most important young men, dressed with such similarity that their rivalry looks like a reflection.

The sport turns toward style

That mirroring arrives just as fashion has turned decisively toward tennis. Luxury houses are investing in the sport with new visibility, and the men’s game is flush with attention. In Italy, Lorenzo Musetti was recently appointed as the first ambassador under Bottega Veneta’s creative director Louise Trotter, a striking choice for a brand with little history in athletics. The move signaled that tennis has become fertile ground for fashion storytelling, aspirational, international, and endlessly photogenic.

That’s why Carlos and Jannik’s rivalry matters. They are not yet known for a deep personal interest in style, but they are now faces of the sport at a moment when fashion is hungry for new muses. Their twinning wardrobes, however accidental, crystallize the challenge and the opportunity. Tennis has long produced icons by contrast: think Roger Federer’s crisp whites versus Rafael Nadal’s sleeveless swagger. But what does it mean when the two brightest stars appear more like variations of the same idea?

Some argue that this sameness risks looking flat, akin to the aesthetic equivalent of carrying a branded bag rather than curating a full, living style. But there is another way to read it. Their doubling feels timely, echoing the way luxury houses often present two models side by side, styled alike but not identical, so that the act of comparison itself becomes the spectacle. In fashion terms, Carlos and Jannik amplify one another.

A global stage for fashion and tennis

That resonance will matter in the years ahead. Tennis apparel sales are climbing worldwide, driven in part by younger consumers looking for versatile pieces that blur the line between athletic and everyday. The sport is also globalizing, with Italy producing a crop of top-50 men, Spain and South America strengthening their footholds, and the United States experiencing a post-pandemic boom in participation. All of this gives fashion brands both a bigger audience and more reason to invest in personalities who can embody the new wave.

The men’s game has yet to find its Coco Gauff moment, the player whose fashion presence feels as natural as their serve. Carlos and Jannik may not be there yet, but their rivalry, unintentionally styled as a series of doubles looks, is opening the conversation. It shows that in tennis today, optics matter as much as outcomes. The sport is no longer only a proving ground for athletes, but also for the way style shapes how those athletes are remembered.

In this sense, what happened in Queens was less about who wore which shade better and more about what their resemblance says about the state of men’s tennis. Rivalries once depended on opposites. Now, they thrive on parallels. The two are not foils, but mirrors. And in a sport increasingly entwined with fashion, that may be exactly what makes them irresistible.