Crusty Wimbledon officials have chosen to show their stuffy side by demanding that tennis royalty Roger Federer change his white — but orange-soled — Nike shoes as they do not strictly conform to the club’s all-white policy.
The nit-picking brigade gave the seven-time champion their dress code ultimatum, with the decision revealed by Daily Mail .
Federer’s clothes were, of course, all white. But somehow the bright orange soles of his shoes got the rule enforcers all hot and bothered.
The non-trivial foot fault was to have been corrected by the Federer camp by the time the third seed played his second match of the fortnight against Sergiy Stakovsky.
If Wimbledon officials put the boot into Federer, then their next logical target should also be women’s top-seed Serena Williams, whose own shoes sport large splotches of bright orange on the side.
And what of ousted American Bethanie Mattek-Sands, whose long hair was tinted traditional purple-and-green club colours as she played an lost her first round match.
With footing such a vital part of the grass game on courts still slick from limited use so far, the question of footwear is far from minor. Elites like Federer and others often have their shoes custom made and it’s not simply a matter of substituting another pair off the rack.
