Send Rafa your questions

WHETHER it’s a matter of tennis or just life, I always remember one thing I was told when I was young. If you are going to wear something particularly bright, striking or likely to leave you open to some friendly but nevertheless ruthless ribbing, then you’d better be pretty sure of yourself.

In my book shocking pink shirts fit right at the top of that category.

Many times I’ve marvelled at the sight of Rafael Nadal. Four straight French Open titles, that sensational Wimbledon final last summer and then another colossal win over Roger Federer to win this year’s Australian Open final. He toppled the guy many insisted was the greatest player of all time from the No 1 spot. The pride of Majorca is the tennis version of Superman.

Now I look at him and recoil for a split-second because of the shirt. I realise he might even have gone to another level, so secure is he in everything he does. I’ve just celebrated my 44th birthday after being brought up to idolise the likes of Laver, Rosewall and Emerson, who always wore predominantly white. Loath though I am to admit it, I’ve probably become too conservative and racked with insecurities in my old age.

Marching out to play in pink transmits a signal of total assurance from a man in his prime. Rafa’s not taking victory for granted because any champion who does that is destined to fail. Yet he knows if he does everything right, puts in maximum effort and brings his true game to the court then it will take a truly exceptional performance to deny him another title. Three rounds gone and there’s no reason not to believe that he’s going to become the first man to win five in a row.

Rafa’s personality has always been modest and unassuming, almost shy. Now if he is bold enough to wear that shirt on court, and prepared to be the brunt of all the wisecracks from the hordes of Spanish players, he must be even more supremely confident at Roland Garros than I could ever have imagined.

At the start of the year Nadal wanted to get away from his adolescent on-court look. Out went the sleeveless T-shirts that showed off his bulging biceps and the pirate pants that had become his trademark. A couple of years back I remember John McEnroe deciding that he was going to wear a pair of those pants on the senior tour and I was one of the guys in the locker room who mocked him unmercifully as a sad middle-aged man desperately trying to rekindle his youth. Mac’s pirate pants disappeared pretty quickly.

However, clothing tells a lot about the player and I’m not so sure Andy Murray is too smart picking an all-black outfit when Parisian afternoons in early June can get decidedly hot and humid. I was always taught you don’t wear black in the sun and I know my fellow Aussie Pat Rafter once paid the price on a sweltering afternoon in Rome. I accept fabric technology has advanced, but there’s a good reason why Arabs in the desert have worn white for thousands of years.

I know Andre Agassi now cringes at photos of him clad in his denim shorts and dayglo Lycra, but taking a different point of view, cast your mind back to Bjorn Borg in that classic pinstriped outfit that only seemed to accentuate his athleticism. He never changed styles throughout his peak years and for good reason — because the very look intimidated opponents. As the ZZ Top song so famously says: everybody’s crazy about a sharp-dressed man.

For a long time Federer was the same. He is extremely fastidious and usually takes great care with everything he wears. However, something not many people may know came at Wimbledon a couple of years ago when he wore a pair of tailored white long tracksuit trousers to enter and leave court to try and recreate the 1930s look. When the time came to be presented with the trophy he pulled the trousers on again — but in his elation he put them on back to front.

He became the only champion in the history of tennis to wear his trousers back to front. I’m convinced we will see another first next Sunday, when the first man sufficiently secure to wear a shocking pink shirt collects one of tennis’s great prizes.