The Grass Runway

SOMETIME last week, center court at Wimbledon began to look more like a fashion show than a tennis tournament. There was Serena Williams warming up in a chic, belted, white trench coat under cloudless skies, Roger Federer as Jay Gatsby in a white cardigan with an "F" insignia, and Maria Sharapova getting trounced in a sheer, pleated-front bib top and shorts. They call that a tennis tuxedo by the way, not a Tennessee tuxedo, and her opponent, fellow Russian Alla Kudryavtseva said afterward, "I don't like her outfit. Can I put it this way? It was one of my motivations to beat her."

Ouch.

All three ensembles were designed by Nike, and the tennis tux shirt, which I think was cute in a high-low kind of way, is $55 at Nike.com. But it was Venus Williams who packed the biggest style punch in a twist-front tennis dress from her own collection, EleVen. Shoppers can buy the piece this month at the fast fashion emporium Steve & Barry's.

It was quite a turn for Wimbledon, which began in 1877 when tennis was a sport of the Victorian elite, to have Williams in her own brand of cheap chic for the masses, even if she did spend a lot of time tugging at the top to make sure it didn't fall down.

Fans may scoff that fashion is taking over the tournament, but they shouldn't. One of the joys of watching Wimbledon is that it is one of the last bastions of a formal dress code. By now, we're used to seeing the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, college students wearing flip-flops to the White House and mourners at President Reagan's memorial donning cargo shorts and baseball hats.

But at Wimbledon, dress whites are still de rigueur and any woman wearing a low-cut top can still be ejected from the court.

While Sharapova's tennis tux isn't likely to make it to the prom, and Williams' tennis dress will probably have limited appeal, it's fascinating to see how players express themselves within the confines of a dress code, and how the most subtle (or not so subtle) gesture can speak volumes. That's what true style is.

Despite its lofty beginnings, tennis has influenced the way the world dresses like no other sport. Our summer uniform of tennis shoes, shorts and polo shirts filtered down from the court. And long before Nike, Adidas, Elesse and other sports brands signed multimillion-dollar deals to dress players, fashion designers got into the game. The popularity of tennis nudged them to develop sportswear, edging formality out of daily life and the runway.