"I feel like I've brought that back" - Victoria Azarenka on revitalizing headbands in women's tennis
WTA
Following her first-round victory at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, former World No. 1 Victoria Azarenka discussed bringing back the use of headbands in women's tennis.
Azarenka, the No. 15 seed, advanced to the second round of the WTA 1000 tournament on Monday, February 20 by defeating Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-3, 7-5 at the Aviation Club Tennis Center.
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Following that, Victoria Azarenka attended a press conference where she was asked why she wears headbands while playing. She responded that while she likes to think of herself as a "trendsetter" for reintroducing headbands in women's tennis, she was inspired by players like Mary Pierce and Gisela Dulko, who did it before her.
"I mean, I want to think of myself as a little bit of a trendsetter," Azarenka said. "I wasn't the first one who wore the bandana, for sure. I was inspired by Mary Pierce. I felt like I've brought that back. There was another player, Gisela Dulko from Argentina, who wore quite a lot of that."
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The Belarusian added that because her sponsor Nike was not initially producing the headbands, she began wearing men's headbands inspired by Rafael Nadal. However, Nike soon began making headbands for girls, and she thought it was a "cool look" -- a "warrior type," that suited her personality quite well.
"Nike weren't making them," she revealed. "I started asking them, Can you start making them for me? I started with the men's bandanas because Rafa [Nadal] used to play with them all the time. They started making the girl's ones. It felt like that catched [sic] on.
"I think it's a cool look. A little bit like a warrior type. It fits my personality quite well, I think."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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