How the walk-on became tennis' most valuable marketing moment
Why brands are turning the short walk to the court into a runway and helping the sport in the process.
It wasn’t long ago that Naomi Osaka’s elaborate walk-on looks felt like an outlier. This Wimbledon, they feel like the blueprint.
Across the grounds, more brands than ever are treating the walk from the locker room to the court as its own marketing moment—complete with bespoke tailoring, custom jackets, and carefully choreographed reveals. While no one is going quite as far as Osaka and her team—they’re bringing couture to the court, after all—the message has clearly landed. Brands, agencies, and players have watched the attention those entrances command and thought: we want in, too.
There is precedent, of course. Roger Federer famously wore a white suit onto Centre Court in 2007, among other outfits. Suzanne Lenglen challenged the restrictive dress codes of her era in custom Jean Patou designs that tran…
