U.S. Open "It" Dress by Lacoste

New York’s Fashion Week is days away, but tennis players are already wearing this season’s hottest sportswear at the U.S. Open. One of the “it” tennis dresses is Lacoste’s sleeveless, zip-placket model in white with black trim on the v-neckline, arm holes and skirt pockets (worn by Eleni Daniilidou, at left, and Yung-Jan Chan, in red visor, in above photo).

Yesterday I observed four players wearing what Lacoste deemed its "US Open 2010" dress: women’s double teammates Vania King (USA) and Yaraslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan), and women’s double’s opponents Yung-Jan Chan (Taipei) and Eleni Daniilidou (Greece). Doubles players will sometimes dress alike, but for one player to dress the same as her opponent at the U.S. Open is the tennis equivalent to two actresses wearing the same dress on the Oscar’s red carpet.

Shvedova, who is ranked No. 31 by WTA Tour, gained sponsorship by Lacoste earlier this year. The French brand also sponsors Andy Roddick (USA), and was co-founded in 1933 by tennis champion Rene Lacoste. He used his nickname, “the Crocodile,” as the brand’s logo. Lacoste sponsored tennis players, as well as ball kids and lines people, sported “the Croc” at this year’s Australian Open, with Lacoste in its second year of a five-year agreement to outfit the tennis tournament’s on-court and off-court .

Lacoste isn’t the only label seeking to increase its international exposure. Chinese brand ANTA is casting its net wide, sponsoring both Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) and Jie Zheng (China), the latter who is ranked No. 23 by WTA Tour and served as Chan’s women’s doubles partner yesterday.

Among labels vying to best dress this year’s tennis stars are Adidas (which teamed up with designer Stella McCartney and outfits the U.S. Open No. 1 seed Caroline Wozniacki [Denmark]) and EleVen, designed by tennis great Venus Williams (USA), along with Nike, which can also take credit for designing one of the “it” hats for women spectators at this year’s U.S. Open. The unisex, Featherlight Dri-Fit, baseball style cap has black mesh marquise-shaped inserts between its panels (which on the red cap resemble seeds in a watermelon). Looking down from the upper seats at Louis Armstrong stadium during the James Blake (USA) and Peter Polansky (Canada) match yesterday, I noticed about a third of the women had donned this distinctive (at least from above) cap. Polo Ralph Lauren is the U.S. Open’s official apparel sponsor, but I saw fewer women spectators in its various caps and hats. Maybe being mistaken for a ball girl is less inviting than being misidentified as a tennis pro.