With the release of Challengers, tenniscore hit a fever pitch earlier this summer. While I was perusing the market for preppy, high contrast green and white pieces fit for the court, I recalled a particular tennis legend’s take on athletic style.
Andre Agassi was the bad boy of the late 1980s / early 1990s tennis. The enfant terrible, if you will. His tennis training started while he was still in pull ups. The pressure applied on him to succeed, specifically by his father, caused him to develop an aversion to tennis, as discussed in his autobiography.
Agassi’s mullet and denim short combination made him especially notorious. And hoo-boy were those shorts teeny tiny. Produced by his sponsor, Nike, the style was released in the time of rigid denim; stretch denim was not yet de rigueur. Keep in mind that the tight weave of denim does not breathe, nor give thus allowing the wearer to make a mad dash across the court, hence the lack of length. Eventually, Nike produced a style that had a built in compression short, neon in true 1990s fashion.
I dug into whether the Andre Agassi Nike shorts of the denim variety were still available and they are, albeit on the secondary market. They will most definitely cost a pretty penny because like many items of the time, the Andre Agassi denim Nike shorts have achieved grail status and the demand has grown as consumers choose to subvert the tenniscore trend with denim in lieu of Wimbledon-approved whites.
Now, who is really going to commit to the look and grow a mullet?
agassi-esque vintage nike shorts on the secondary market
