Nike hit its stride with Carlos Alcaraz at the Australian Open
After a few years of false starts, the partnership has finally come into its own.
Tennis fans, myself included, have been lamenting Nike’s autopilot participation in the sport in recent years. A few years ago, they shuttered their tennis design team and started putting the majority of their sponsored players in the same uninspired outfits. Even their star ATP players, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, were often wearing a version of the same kit in different colors—a move that failed to reflect the outsized impact of their young careers and rivalry.
But at this year’s Australian Open, Nike’s partnership with Carlos Alcaraz, at least, finally reached its potential.
I wasn’t initially convinced by the photos of the lime green sets Alcaraz was slated to be wearing before the tournament started, but once I actually saw them in motion (being one of the best athletes in the world with inherent swag always helps) the funky, ‘90s-era pieces were a perfect fit. Capped off with a new lime green colorway of the Nike Vapor 12 sneakers and a matching zip-up Nike jacket, the look felt as effortlessly cool as Alcaraz himself.
He rolled up to the tournament site every day in Nike outfits that stood out more than the average branded t-shirt, like a baseball-inspired jersey and matching shorts. Tennis doesn’t have traditional tunnel walks (although the ATP says they’re coming) but I suspect he’d win that award if one existed.
But what really took the collaboration to the next level was Alcaraz’s impressive rotation of Nike sneakers—some released but hard-to-get, others coming soon—that underscored his natural style and affinity for the brand. It’s hard to make a paid partnership feel “organic,” but moments like these really do.
In the early rounds of the tournament, he flexed with a pair of unreleased Nike Skylon 11 Volt’s and the Air Max 95 Neon, which is currently only available on resale sites. After winning his quarterfinal match, he threw on the Air Jordan 11 Gamma Blue sneakers which sold out in the US immediately after being restocked late last year.
For his semifinal win interview, it was an old blue colorway of Travis Scott’s highly coveted Fragment Air Jordan 1 Low’s, which led the rapper to shout him out on Instagram, writing “Way to cook twin.” Those cross-cultural moments are, of course, what makes Nike such a powerful brand when it’s utilized correctly. Alcaraz then capped his record-breaking run off with a mysterious pair of black mixed-leather and suede sneakers for the final trophy ceremony which a source tells me is a new Tennis Classic shoe set to be released in May.
The swoosh celebrated his win and career Grand Slam achievement with a very Nike video, telling viewers, “And just think, you have the rest of his life ahead of you.” They’ve made content like this for him and Sinner before but this felt like the best execution yet, less of an afterthought than previous attempts and one that actually underscored the insta-greatness of his career.
The truth is that, with a little effort, Nike and Carlos Alcaraz are a perfect union—a more natural fit than, say, him and Louis Vuitton, and more fitting than Nike and Jannik Sinner. Alcaraz is tapped into—and cares about—what’s cool, and as he’s gotten older we’ve seen him come into his own with fashion (yes, sometimes that involves sweat shorts and crocs). The way he plays tennis is also inherently swaggy, a reality that would be silly not to capitalize on with clothing.
Sinner, on the other hand, screams minimalism to me. He’s cool in the chilly sense—you’ll find no hearts on his sleeve—and his outfits should reflect that. Think: the all-black outfit he wore in Rome last year, and block out all memories of the puke green get-up he wore at this year’s AO.
Gucci has done a great job executing on this, despite their more colorful DNA—a quick Google search of Sinner wearing the brand to events will show you a lot of very sleek, monochrome outfits. It’s the perfect approach for a man who seems to care more about comfort and structure than being cool. Nike may not be the best brand for Sinner because of this—if only Uniqlo could pay up—but they’d certainly have more impact if they leaned into what actually works for him.
What do you think of Nike’s execution with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner so far? Would Sinner work best with a different brand? Let me know in the comments!
Honestly I’ve been a bit of a Nike hater within the tennis space, because I never really understood why they’d invest such little time into the 2 best players that we currently have (and likely will have for a long time). Wilson have always been my faves, but I would love to see them putting more effort into Carlos and Jannik (tbh, I think Jannik would do better with Lacoste, when/if Novak leaves), especially because Carlos is such a huge fan of Nike. Really loved his kit for AO this year, and I’m looking forward to what’s coming!
New subscriber, great article – menswear tennis fashion is a curious subject that I'm pretty interested in. When we look at the space overall, my mind always comes back to this question. If Nike are underperforming creatively (which I agree with), and that's what we look to Nike for, who is 'pushing the needle'? Who is making stunning tennis menswear collections that Nike can 'look up to'? 'On' have some designs I like, but have fabric issues and generally take a more 'uniform' design approach. Wilson's menswear collections are ok but are pretty run-of-the-mill, preppy-adjacent stuff. On the collabs side, the recent mens Adidas x Y-3 capsule had some artistic flair but was pretty uninspiring, same with Asics x APC (although I liked some of the pieces). Lacoste are probably the most consistent overall, but their conservative, refined image is purposefully restrained (same with Boss). Ultimately I'm not a big fan of most of Nike's mens tenniswear, but I'm not a fan of much of it at all.
With Nadal's excellent endorsement line being wound down, a gap is clearly there for Sinner/Alcaraz to fill, and we can see from Nike's recent Alcaraz logo trademark that they're likely to go down that direction in the future. Sinner/Alcaraz are still establishing their careers and Nike will likely want to wait a bit longer before releasing full-throttle endorsement lines with dedicated seasonal collections. I think it's also tough to compare now to the 'golden age' of the 2000s/2010s where Nike had an insane amount of brand value and storytelling in Fedal/Sharapova-Serena at their disposal and responded accordingly.
What we know from Nike's recent significant internal restructuring and their recent promotional efforts is that they're recentering their strategy from a focus on tech, to one focused on pinnacle athletes, sports narratives and product innovation, as it used to be under Phil Knight. And are building their teams around individual sports to reflect this new approach, so I'm curious to see where we are in a few years.