Sergio Tacchini Tennis Clothing

This classic Italian tennis styling company was founded by Sergio Tacchini in 1966. Sergio had played Davis Cup for Italy from 1959 to 1966. He had the foresight to use some great designers to apply that great sense of Italian styling that we all know and love. He was the first to experiment with different colours and geometric patterns, while the tennis world was still obsessed with wearing "tennis whites".

Furthermore, he signed up some of the most charismatic Italian players of their time like Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzuti, Tonino Zugarelli and Paolo Bertolucci. Being Italian, they were naturals at combining form and function, with a great sense of style as usual. I remember owning one of the great tennis polos of this period which was basically white, but had the Italian flag colours on ONE SLEEVE only to keep it simple, stylish and elegant. It summed up the brand perfectly at the time.

Later on, some of the greatest tennis players of their generation started to wear Sergio Tacchini, like John McEnroe. Jimmy Connors, Pat Cash, Vitas Gerulaitis, Ilie Nastase and Goran Ivanisevic. The women included Martina Navratilova and Gabriela Sabbatini. John McEnroe (you cannot be serious!) and Ilie Nastase wore the brand with a degree of notoriety during the 80s. In later years Pete Sampras, Sergei Bruguera and Martina added world-class titles while wearing the brand, all the way up to Novak Djokovic, who was the global brand ambassador for Sergio for a number of years. Who can forget Marc Girardelli throwing himself down the slopes, or Ian Woosnam putting on the green jacket over his Sergio polo?