It’s Monday, you know what that means. More good kits. More ugly kits. This time, it’s a review of Rome where Daniil Medvedev stunned us all and won his first career ATP clay court tournament. Nys-Zielinski stepped up and took home the doubles titles, their biggest score to date. Time to dissect the kits.
GOOD KIT
Diadora does it again with a stellar kit for Rome doubles champ Jan Zielinski (left). I’ve documented it during this swing that I think Diadora has developed into one of the very best designers on tour. Their designs always feature great color combinations like the blue and emerald green in this one. I like the alternating use of the blue and green on either shoulder and the blue shorts are set off nicely with the emerald green stripes down the hips. For me, this is a perfect example of using multiple colors, but keeping the design simple and pleasing to the eye.
UGLY KIT
I only hope this is the very last damn time I have to feature this garbage kit. I think everyone else has ditched the psycho doodle top from Nike that came out to kick of 2023. It’s just too much and I only hope Nike has something else planned for Carlos Alcaraz for the French Open, although I think we all know it will still suck. It will either be too busy or as bland as an Alexander Zverev second serve.
GOOD KIT
This is another of my “new” favorite designs in Le Coq Sportif. Yannick Hanfmann sports this solid kit that features some familiar colors for German fans. Much like Diadora, LCS knows how to use its color combinations to set off the kit in style while keeping things simple. There’s nothing busy about the use of the yellow up top in this one and the patterns are straight forward. The subtle use of black in the logo and the small stripes on the sleeve perfectly set off the black shorts. Another good one from the French designers.
UGLY KIT
Okay, so I originally thought this was another all-black kit, something that littered Rome from a variety of designers. Upon closer inspection and suggestion from others, I guess it’s a real dull shade of navy blue by Giorgio Armani’s EA7. Whatever the color, color me not a fan. I’m not against kits being all the same solid color as I’ve actually said the orange-red Nike kit sported by Holger Rune and Frances Tiafoe isn’t half bad. Still, this one doesn’t do it for me. I think the color needs to pop some and this one is just a muted tone of nothingness. It could be worse, but I think I’d actually prefer it to be all-black like they did for Fabio Fognini. Fognini’s even had a splash of color to it that set it off.
GOOD KIT
Here is a bonus good kit to finish things off in Rome. Roberto Carballes Baena is wearing this kit from Lotto. In Madrid, I featured a different combination from Lotto for fellow Spaniard Bernabe Zapata Miralles. This one isn’t quite as good, but I still really like the look of it. You’ve got four colors featured in the shirt and while you might think I’d hate the somewhat busy nature of the design, I think they went the right way with using the different shapes to feature the colors rather than doing something stupid like Nike tends to do. With red, pink, orange and maroon all on display it would have been easy to screw this up with a harsh design. I think Lotto did well to mix it up and the orange wrist bands are a nice compliment to set off the smaller amount of orange in the shirt. White shorts seem a smart choice to not over complicate this kit in its totality. I dig it.
Now we march on to Paris and the French Open. We’re sure to see some abominations as the big companies go big for the Grand Slam, so it should be interesting to see what the likes of Nike, Adidas and some others have planned. Join me for the live commentary on Twitter as the tournament progresses over the next few weeks.
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