2018 Australian Open Fashion Misses

A new tennis season opens up so many sorts of opportunities – to feast on momentum after finishing well, to break a mournful losing streak and also to reset one's wardrobe of on-court kits. Some days of sweltering temperatures in Melbourne call for smart style choices at the Australian Open. Emerging from said wardrobes' are sporting sponsors' economical but also fashionable looks. It's that garb we're gabbing about here – the 2018 style winners in Melbourne. (Conversely, have at the 2018 AO's Fashion Aces here).

Those style winners contain Nick Kyrgios (if anything can "contain" him), who sports the same look as a few other guys – Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and  Kyle Edmund among them. The difference between the likes of Kyrgios or Denis Shapovalov and those gents remains a dynamic disposition, a certain je ne sais quoi. Maybe some seem to sizzle, entirely at home in hot magenta, while others still look like mere boys.

Nike's kits for the women, from comeback artist Belinda Bencic to comeback-hungry

Eugenie Bouchard to title frontrunner Elina Svitolina, do no favors for fairly complected persons and otherwise lack inspiration. Off-white will only tend to white out too many of those in it. And, in Svitolina's case, she and countrywoman Marta Kostyuk.

Falling prey to the same issue, Adidas outfits Alexander Zverev in ombre blue tones that we're going to term "weak teal." The look simply pales in comparison to bold oranges and other hues befitting a future champion yet to deliver the goods in a high-stakes, best-of-five setting.

A three-hour, 45-minute bout against a near-equal (and fellow diminutive type) simply should not see the No. 1 player in the world competing sans sponsor. Yet that fate befalls Simona Halep before, during and after her defeat of Lauren Davis (15-13 in the third, no less) at this major. What a miss by both her team and the brand that ultimately takes her in post-Australia.

A two-time 2017 major finalist. A US Open champ four months back. An Aussie semifinalist a year ago. Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens and Coco Vandeweghe all move with a lot of purpose and a lot of expectation. None of them contend long this year in Melbourne, but, as fashion goes, that's for different reasons: 1) Venus needs to forego borderline-matronly prints that age her, even if the EleVen by Venus faithful prefer such boundary-hugging styles, 2) as a newcomer to the "swoosh," Stephens seems bored in her lead-off Nike look and 3) Vandeweghe wears basically the same Asics dress she sported in rolling to the semis 12 months ago. Let's go, ladies.

Dear Kaia Kanepi, just what is happening? Hard yawn.

It's not that Angelique Kerber's Adidas garb is garish. It's that it's flat-out overrun by logos. It's distracting. She looks like a human billboard.

Off-Court Critique

At the same Aussie Open players' party that Garbine Muguruza steals from her field of peers, Jelena Ostapenko either doesn't appear to try at all or else tries far too hard. Either way, she channels Morticia Addams attending a wake.

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