Wimbledon to relax all-white underwear rules for female players at next summer’s Championships

Wimbledon is set to relax the ban on female players wearing colored underwear after coming under pressure to align with other sports.

The All England Club is likely to announce that for next summer’s Championships, its unique all-white rule will be modified to reflect the issues female competitors may face with their menstrual cycles.

According to well-placed sources at SW19, players will still be required to wear white clothing on top, but that requirement will no longer apply when it comes to underpants or underpants.

The all-white dress code at Wimbledon will probably be relaxed next summer, so that it only applies to the top layer of clothing

Last week Judy Murray, in an interview with Sports poststated that she thought it was about time Wimbledon was more aligned with other professional athletic pursuits in terms of making the dress code more female-friendly.

“One of the biggest problems in sport was that in many different sports it was always white pants, white kit and so on. Everything was white. Almost all sports have now switched to color,” she said.

“I think it’s definitely a much more open topic of conversation when you’re all in white and then potentially leaking while you’re playing. I can’t think of a more traumatic experience than that.

“If all the matches are now televised and streamed, that’s something to think about. It’s one of those things, when something like that becomes a topic of conversation, decisions have to be made about it. But it’s also very important that we have a lot of women on the decision-making panel because they understand what it’s like to have menstrual cycles and they understand the fear of that happening while playing.”

Wimbledon insisted they were looking for ways to support women’s health in tennis

Wimbledon responded that “prioritising women’s health and supporting players based on their individual needs is very important to us and we are in discussions with the WTA, manufacturers and the medical teams on how we can do that.” to do.’

Sports post understands that those discussions have moved quickly and that a new rule for 2023 will be confirmed shortly.

There have been occasional issues with underwear color so far, with players long frustrated by the restrictions. Before this summer’s finale, a small protest was staged outside the gates by opponents of the rules, calling themselves Address The Dress Code. Four years ago, Australian star John Millman had to send his father on an emergency shopping mission after being asked to change his dark-colored underpants.

Britain’s leading women are in Glasgow this week for the final of the Billie Jean King Cup – the self-proclaimed 12-team Women’s Tennis World Cup – for which they have been wild-carded as the host nation.

Judy Murray said Wimbledon should follow other professional athletic pursuits in terms of making the dress code more female-friendly

Today they face Kazakhstan in their opening match at the Emirates Arena, with Anne Keothavong’s squad being the outsiders to advance from their three-team group to the semi-finals, especially given the absence of Emma Raducanu, who is the national number 1 stays.

Raducanu’s management, who is recovering from a sore wrist, downplayed reports that Harry Kane is mentoring her, although the two have spoken in recent months. She hopes to be able to practice again halfway through the month.

Without her, they will have to play above their league table to upset Spain and the Kazakhs, who can boast Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina as their number 1 player, likely to face Harriet Dart on Wednesday.

Rybakina missed a place in the year-end WTA Finals, which conclude on Monday night in Fort Worth, Texas. The event that landed there at relatively short notice was plagued by a lack of local interest with sparse crowds in a 14,000 seat venue.

The problem was highlighted by a protest outside the gates of Wimbledon this summer, using the slogan ‘Address the dress code’.

Host of the Lawn Tennis Association hopes the numbers will be better in Glasgow, although this week was hit by the withdrawal of world No. 1 Iga Swiatek, who has refused to play for Poland due to the inexplicably poor organization of the two events . dates almost collide.

The highest-ranked player on display is American Coco Gauff, whose solid progress this year now sees her ranked No. 4 in the world.

Britain will, on paper, struggle in the company of a healthy group of top 20 players. But Katie Boulter, the likely No. 2, defeated her counterpart, Yulia Putintseva, on Tuesday when the two teams met in the same competition at the Copper Box in London in 2019.

Captain Anne Keothavong remains optimistic, saying: ‘It’s just a different dynamic when you get into this kind of competition than what you would experience on a weekly basis and hopefully they all feel well supported. They’ll feel the love and the fact that we’re playing in front of our home crowd should help them when they’re out there in the thick of it.”