Highly Celebrated for His Classy Fashion Sense, Roger Federer Faced the Wrath of Conventional Wimbledon for Breaking the Rules in 2013

Every tennis fan in the world is aware of Roger Federer‘s extraordinary connection to Wimbledon. The former tennis player has always delighted in competing and triumphing at the tournament. Though, there was a time when the 41-year-old tennis star went against Wimbledon’s orthodox tradition.

Not only that, the eight-time Wimbledon champion has such a close relationship with the prestigious grass court tournament that there are reports that strongly suggest his return to the tennis world as part of the BBC broadcasting team at the 2023 Wimbledon Championship.

When Wimbledon banned Federer’s shoes

Back in 2013, Wimbledon officials made it clear to the Swiss ace to not to wear his orange-soled Nike shoes which were again the dress code of the tournament. According to For The Wire website, his limited edition Nike shoes were banned from the tennis court.

The bigger question is whether Wimbledon went too far in banning the shoes of the former world number one tennis player. There are times when the tournament has seen tennis players wear an array of colors on their socks and shoes. At that time, the authorities raised no objection to their on-court fashion.

But when Federer went against the Wimbledon dressing policy, the tournament officials banned Federer’s Nike shoes.

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Tennis players have, however, broken the Wimbledon dress code of all-white before. The identical Nike orange-colored shorts were worn earlier?by WTA stars Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Even so, compared to the other tennis players who occasionally disregarded the all-white dress regulation, the orange color on the Swiss Maestro shoes was more noticeable and alluring.

The guidelines required that there should not be any sizable solid blocks of color that could attract attention. Meanwhile, Nike greatly benefitted from the entire incident.

While Roger Federer faced heat, Nike used the controversy to its fullest?

The former world number one wore those shoes for just one match. And afterward, Nike shared on their official Twitter account how that one match had done wonders for them. Within a day of the significant debate, all of the shoes in the limited edition were sold out.

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Notably, Nike cleverly used the issue around the orange shoes as one of their major public relations ploys.

Should the Wimbledon authorities be more flexible with their all-white tradition and allow colors? Let us know in the comments.