That tattoos have gone mainstream is nothing new. Most people you are working or hanging out with are bound to have gotten inked once or twice by now. However, that tattoos would make it onto the centre court in one of the world’s most conservative sports was never a given.
Granted, a few players have already thwarted aesthetic expectations throughout the years. But, probably nothing has been quite as impactful for tattoos in tennis as seeing this year’s winner of Wimbledon, Markéta Vondroušová, show off her collection of body art. The 24-year-old Czech player wrote history as the first unseeded woman to win the tournament in the Open Era. Furthermore, she may have sparked a whole new trend on the court.
Vondroušová rose 32 places in the WTA rankings following her Wimbledon triumph. In doing so, she also shot herself, and her collection of tattoos, to additional stardom. (Although we should point out, she did already have an Olympic silver medal in the bag from Tokyo.) And people can’t seem to stop talking about them.
Wimbledon memory tattoo coming up
She got her first tattoo at 16 and never looked back as you can tell from the ink on her arms. Most of the artists she frequents are from Prague, and many of them are female. Some of Vondroušová’s pieces include her, somewhat unconventional, lucky number 13. (Wimbledon doesn’t even have a court 13 due to superstition.)
There are several phrases and words, such as ‘no rain, no flowers’. As she explained in an interview in 2021 after her Olympic medal,
“I think you know, without failure, there is no success, so you have to go through some hard matches. Even if you lose especially if you keep believing in yourself and yeah, this is the reward.”
Like many who have competed at the Olympics, Vondroušová also has the Olympic rings tattooed on her arm, along with flowers, fairies, dice, and many more. And it doesn’t seem like she is done yet. To start with, Vondroušová and her coach, Jan Hernych, intend to get matching strawberry tattoos in honour of a pre-Wimbledon bet between the two.
Growing trend on the tennis court
Despite the sport having some of the strictest uniform rules out there, there are no explicit rules that forbid tattoos in tennis. Some of our favourites include the black and grey full sleeve of Polona Hercog from Slovenia and Dustin Brown’s portraits of his father and his smother on the side of his torso.
And, of course, Australia’s Nick Kyrgios has got an array of body art, including a full sleeve, and a tattoo of the Joker from Batman along with the words “Give a man a mask and he will become his true self.”
