Even as injury cut her run short, Japanese player Naomi Osaka’s Robert Wun-designed, jellyfish-themed Nike ensemble stole the spotlight, reaffirming her place in a lineage of women tennis stars who used style as power
A parasol. A veil. A hat. No, we aren’t cataloguing the essentials of a Victorian wardrobe or revisiting a ‘Fashion History 101’ lecture. These were the accessories Naomi Osaka flaunted for her first-round appearance at the 2026 Australian Open recently. While Osaka secured a hard-fought victory against Croatia’s Antonia Ružić (6-3, 3-6, 6-4), it was her ensemble — replete with extra-flared trousers and a pleated miniskirt — that stole the spotlight.
Evocative of a jellyfish, the look was a definitive ‘high-fashion’ moment for the two-time Australian Open champion. Though an abdominal injury eventually forced her withdrawal from the tournament, Osaka’s aesthetic legacy was already cemented on the court. The ‘jellyfish’ motif wasn’t limited to her entrance; it extended to her on-court kit.
From the frilled cropped jacket worn during warm-ups to the sea-green and aquamarine hues of her tennis dress, the look kept the aquatic invertebrate alive and swimming across the court — all thanks to the creation by Robert Wun, which was then manifested by Nike. Osaka’s idea of wearing the sea creature came to her when she was reading to Shai, her two-year-old daughter. “There was an image of a jellyfish, and when I showed it to her she got so excited,” Osaka shared with Vogue.
Fashioning Her-story
Osaka is no stranger to high fashion. In fact, she is one of the few players to have effectively and consistently turned the tennis court into her own personal runway. This isn’t the first time she has experimented with avant-garde details; she previously turned heads with Swarovski-bedazzled headphones in a warm crimson, paired with rosettes woven into her braids — she had accompanying Labubu charms for her kit bag. And who could forget the oversized ‘Goth Bows’ she brandished at the 2024 US Open? A vibrant homage to Japanese ‘Goth Lolita’ and Harajuku subculture, the kit was a custom Nike collaboration designed by Yoon Ahn that cemented Osaka’s status as the queen of ‘tennis-core.’
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While critics might argue that her aesthetic creates more headlines than her on-court performance, an icon like Osaka is doing more than just playing a game; she is asserting her identity with every stylish stance. “When I look back at the players who came before me, I think about how those moments—those looks—have become memories that live forever..So much of the time, other people get to write our stories for us. This felt like a moment where I could write a little bit of my own,” Osaka told Vogue following her Australian Open appearance.
The tennis ace is indeed writing her own narrative, and in doing so, she is empowering others to do the same. Through her highly curated looks, she isn’t just inspiring tennis enthusiasts, she is reaching the awkward teenage girl in a far-flung island of Indonesia or a small village in Africa, providing the representation and the ‘push’ they might desperately need.
Courting couture
For decades, tennis was dominated by a strictly white palette: pristine dresses, shorts, and skirts. Occasionally, a flash of colour or a pale pink hem would break the pastel hegemony, but high fashion and identity assertion remained an alien concept on the court. Everything shifted into high gear with Serena Williams. The winner of 23 Grand Slam singles titles chose to dress as she wished, transforming the court into a site of rebellion. Her wardrobe was legendary: the asymmetrical black, pink, and red Nike unitard; the tutu-style skirts; and the yellow knee-high socks at the 2002 French Open.
There was the silver-corseted white dress, the pink leopard print of the 2014 US Open, and, most famously, the revolutionary black catsuit at the 2018 French Open. “I call it my Wakanda-inspired catsuit,” Williams stated during a post-match interview after defeating Kristyna Pliskova, invoking the fictional country from the film Black Panther. “It represents all the women who have been through a lot mentally and physically... to come back and have confidence.”
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Despite her victory, the body-hugging catsuit — designed partly for compression after a life-threatening pregnancy — was famously banned by the French Tennis Federation, with officials demanding she never wear it again. Closer to home, Sania Mirza — India’s biggest claim to fame where women’s tennis is concerned—also courted significant controversy with her clothing. Her on-court choices even earned her a fatwa from clerics who demanded she stop wearing “revealing” attire.
Undeterred, Mirza used her wardrobe to send a message. At Wimbledon in 2004, she famously sported a T-shirt with the words ‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’ emblazoned across the chest. A year later at the US Open, she greeted the media in a shirt that asked, ‘I’m cute?’, firmly tongue-in-cheek. By simply adhering to traditional tennis attire — sleeveless shirts and skirts — Mirza rattled conservative sensibilities. She soldiered on, refusing to let the noise dictate her identity, and remains a singular sporting icon in the country to this day.
Serve and style
Williams, Mirza and Osaka have joined the league of extraordinary women who pushed the boundaries of the sport, not just with their superior athleticism, but by challenging how the world treats women in the arena. They follow a lineage of defiance: in the 1910s, Suzanne Lenglen became the first to wear sleeveless tops and calf-length skirts at Wimbledon, discarding the cumbersome long skirts and long tops. Later, Helen Jacobs famously traded skirts for shorts.
Every era needs a hero to defy convention and usher in a new dawn of creativity and ‘new blood’. Osaka is leading that charge from the front, with every bow, butterfly, and backstroke in tow. It is a shift to be celebrated, admired, and even emulated. The critics can take a walk; they will be silenced anyway when she secures her next match and her next title. The next time you hesitate to apply a lipstick you feel is ‘too dark’ for the office, or an outfit that feels ‘too fancy’ for a meeting… shed your recalcitrance. Remember what Naomi Osaka wears to work. You’ll be in very good company.
