Switzerland's Roger Federer walks on to the court at Wimbledon.
Switzerland's Roger Federer walks on to the court at Wimbledon.
Switzerland's Roger Federer walks on to the court at Wimbledon.
Switzerland's Roger Federer walks on to the court at Wimbledon.

Anyone for tennis?


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When the six biggest male stars in tennis begin their battle at Abu Dhabi's new International Tennis Complex tomorrow, it will not just be the game that the audience is watching: it will be the clothes. Tennis has always inspired fashionistas, from Lacoste piqués to Stan Smith trainers by Adidas, so commentators and keen amateur players will be taking style notes. The perfect chic-to-hip ratio is always hard to achieve with fabrics that are designed for wicking and stretching. While the game everyone will be hoping to catch - Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal - will be a battle of Titans, the other burning issues will be whether Federer wears his Wimbledon white jacket and slacks or the all-black kit that he donned for the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai, in November; whether Andy Murray chooses Fred Perry or K-Swiss; and whether Nadal has swapped his customary white capri pants and muscle top for his much-feted, but as-yet-untried, new look of classic polo shirt and shorts.

Of course, whatever they wear, the one thing that's guaranteed is that a good proportion of it will be by Nike. The sportswear giant is acutely aware of the game's tendency to attract sartorial scrutiny, and brilliantly placed to take advantage of it. For the last two decades, Nike has been putting down huge sums of money to dress tennis's most flamboyant stars, from Andre Agassi to Maria Sharapova, allowing them to take plenty of risks with the traditional tennis style. The company recently re-signed Federer for what could amount to nearly Dh50 million a year (depending on playing commitments), and when it signed up Andre Agassi back in 1988, it made him the highest-paid tennis player of his day.

Of course, the money factor changes the whole concept of style on the court, with a manufactured, commercial edge that can make players look more like automated sportswear mannequins than free will-endowed humans. Sure, the companies work with their endorsers to make sure their own look is complemented - as with Federer's conservative-dandy pre-match outfits, which are oh so gentlemanly, reserved and, well, Swiss - but it is a sad loss to the concept of personal style.

In the 1920s, Suzanne Lenglen surprised the world with her own individualist look - a brightly coloured silk chiffon bandeau on her head and a short (calf-length), sleeveless and - most shockingly - corset-free dress in silk or cotton. Though the dresses were designed by Jean Patou, the French couturier and rival to Chanel, it was the gregarious Lenglen's innovation, a dashing combination of drama and practicality. Compare that with Sharapova's recent Nike-sponsored outings, which have ranged from a bright red Swarovski-clad dress to a tuxedo-top and shorts, and it seems that the rounds of new styles are more about launching the latest frock on the hottest tennis star. Indeed, Sharapova's tuxedo outfit may have been her undoing at Wimbledon this year, pushing her opponent Alla Kudryavtseva to victory out of sheer disgust. The dour Kudryavtseva was quoted at the time as saying: "It's very pleasant to beat Maria. I don't like her outfit. Can I put it this way? It was one of my motivations to beat her."

Still, there are plenty of maverick dressers in the history of tennis, from the scandal of Maud Watson and her ankle-length dresses in the late 19th century (though she still wore the requisite corsets of the day) to Bjorn Borg's tiny shorts and headband in the Seventies. And with some players, neither commerce - the power of the endorsement - nor taste has been a consideration. When Andre Agassi's long, blond-streaked mullet and rock 'n' roll T-shirts first came on the scene in the late Eighties and early Nineties, he refused to play at Wimbledon, apparently because of their strict rules regarding the wearing of only tennis whites. Yet even as we loved him for his rebellion, still we knew in our hearts that those crop tops and the pink Lycra cycling shorts layered beneath denim ones looked like rejects from the New Kids on the Block wardrobe, and that the mullet (business in the front, party in the back, as they say) was a hairstyle too long.

Just a few years before Agassi, Anne White played against Pam Shriver at Wimbledon in 1985 wearing an all-in-one skintight catsuit, claiming that it was to prevent her legs from getting cold in bleak British weather. Possibly to a young woman in the Eighties, this seemed like a reasonable, hi-tech and functional ensemble, but that did not prevent her from being quietly told to wear something more appropriate when, after being rained off, the match resumed the following day. Certainly, she is now remembered more for her dress sense than her tennis (she lost to Shriver). Other eccentrics have included Jean Borotra, who was playing in the late Twenties and early Thirties and was known as the Bounding Basque. He always wore a beret on court, much to the disgust of his more urbane opponents such as "Big Bill" Tilden, whose own sporty cable-knit sweater and white slacks were the model of elegance.

We may not be wearing unitards and mullets on the court nowadays, but some tennis players have created looks with true longevity. Chris Evert's thin diamond bracelet, which she dropped on the court in 1987, was an instant hit and the style has since been known as the tennis bracelet. And take Bunny Austin: he was best known as both the last British player to reach the final of Wimbledon (in 1938) and the first man to ditch the classic tennis flannels in favour of shorts, in 1933 - though not before the American player Alice Marble scandalised audiences by wearing shorts instead of a dress in 1932. However shocking their actions were at the time, the fact is that the very functionality of the garments is what made them stylish, allowing the players to move more freely and gracefully. After all, good design can be an aesthetically pleasing extension of the most pragmatic solution to a problem - in this case, how to achieve movement while retaining modesty.

Another problem that was solved (pleasingly to some, sinfully to others) was what to wear beneath the tiny skirts favoured by women players from the Forties onwards. Torn between wanting to look feminine by wearing a skirt rather than shorts and needing the freedom of movement offered by micro-minis, the answer came in 1949 - to huge uproar - thanks to the designer and Wimbledon master of ceremonies Ted Tinling. He designed a dress - with a pair of frilly, lacy knickers included - for the American player Augusta "Gorgeous Gussie" Moran. Both she and Ted were vilified (though she went on to a showbiz career) but the short-skirt-and-hefty-knickers combo has proved its longevity, with the French player Tatiana Golovin nearly causing a riot as she seemed to flout Wimbledon's all-white rule with a pair of red knickers at last year's Wimbledon. (It later turned out that the all-white rules do not apply to underwear. So that's OK, then.)

Some tennis players have been so concerned with on-court style that they have launched their own labels. The granddaddy of them all is René Lacoste, the French champion of the 1920s, whose piqué cotton polo tops, first created in 1933, became so popular as an alternative to the usual stiff long-sleeved shirts of the time that he began to manufacture them after he retired from playing. The ubiquitous embroidered crocodile came from his nickname, "the Crocodile", acquired when he bet a crocodile suitcase that he would win a match (he didn't). The British three-times champion of Wimbledon, Fred Perry, a working class hero despised by the bourgeois tennis establishment at the time (the 1930s), launched his brand at the end of the Forties with the towelling wristband, and soon developed the range into the fitted polo shirts that became the staple garment of the British Mod movement. More recently, Venus Williams has turned down lucrative sponsorships from the likes of Reebok to launch her own streetwise sportswear collection, EleVen, which she has been sporting on the court with varying degrees of success. In fashion, as in sport, you win some, you lose some.
The Capitala World Tennis Championship takes place at Zayed Sports City in Abu Dhabi from Jan 1 to 3. @email:www.capitalatwc.com

gchamp@thenational.ae

How much of your income do you need to save?

The more you save, the sooner you can retire. Tuan Phan, a board member of SimplyFI.com, says if you save just 5 per cent of your salary, you can expect to work for another 66 years before you are able to retire without too large a drop in income.

In other words, you will not save enough to retire comfortably. If you save 15 per cent, you can forward to another 43 working years. Up that to 40 per cent of your income, and your remaining working life drops to just 22 years. (see table)

Obviously, this is only a rough guide. How much you save will depend on variables, not least your salary and how much you already have in your pension pot. But it shows what you need to do to achieve financial independence.

 

Netherlands v UAE, Twenty20 International series

Saturday, August 3 - First T20i, Amstelveen
Monday, August 5 – Second T20i, Amstelveen​​​​​​​
Tuesday, August 6 – Third T20i, Voorburg​​​​​​​
Thursday, August 8 – Fourth T20i, Vooryburg

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PROFILE OF HALAN

Started: November 2017

Founders: Mounir Nakhla, Ahmed Mohsen and Mohamed Aboulnaga

Based: Cairo, Egypt

Sector: transport and logistics

Size: 150 employees

Investment: approximately $8 million

Investors include: Singapore’s Battery Road Digital Holdings, Egypt’s Algebra Ventures, Uber co-founder and former CTO Oscar Salazar

Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
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Water waste

In the UAE’s arid climate, small shrubs, bushes and flower beds usually require about six litres of water per square metre, daily. That increases to 12 litres per square metre a day for small trees, and 300 litres for palm trees.

Horticulturists suggest the best time for watering is before 8am or after 6pm, when water won't be dried up by the sun.

A global report published by the Water Resources Institute in August, ranked the UAE 10th out of 164 nations where water supplies are most stretched.

The Emirates is the world’s third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada.

Indoor cricket in a nutshell

Indoor Cricket World Cup – Sep 16-20, Insportz, Dubai

16 Indoor cricket matches are 16 overs per side

8 There are eight players per team

There have been nine Indoor Cricket World Cups for men. Australia have won every one.

5 Five runs are deducted from the score when a wickets falls

Batsmen bat in pairs, facing four overs per partnership

Scoring In indoor cricket, runs are scored by way of both physical and bonus runs. Physical runs are scored by both batsmen completing a run from one crease to the other. Bonus runs are scored when the ball hits a net in different zones, but only when at least one physical run is score.

Zones

A Front net, behind the striker and wicketkeeper: 0 runs

B Side nets, between the striker and halfway down the pitch: 1 run

Side nets between halfway and the bowlers end: 2 runs

Back net: 4 runs on the bounce, 6 runs on the full

U19 WORLD CUP, WEST INDIES

UAE group fixtures (all in St Kitts)
Saturday 15 January: v Canada
Thursday 20 January: v England
Saturday 22 January: v Bangladesh

UAE squad
Alishan Sharafu (captain), Shival Bawa, Jash Giyanani, Sailles Jaishankar, Nilansh Keswani, Aayan Khan, Punya Mehra, Ali Naseer, Ronak Panoly, Dhruv Parashar, Vinayak Raghavan, Soorya Sathish, Aryansh Sharma, Adithya Shetty, Kai Smith

The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

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Honeymoonish
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APPLE IPAD MINI (A17 PRO)

Display: 21cm Liquid Retina Display, 2266 x 1488, 326ppi, 500 nits

Chip: Apple A17 Pro, 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

Storage: 128/256/512GB

Main camera: 12MP wide, f/1.8, digital zoom up to 5x, Smart HDR 4

Front camera: 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.4, Smart HDR 4, full-HD @ 25/30/60fps

Biometrics: Touch ID, Face ID

Colours: Blue, purple, space grey, starlight

In the box: iPad mini, USB-C cable, 20W USB-C power adapter

Price: From Dh2,099

'Panga'

Directed by Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Starring Kangana Ranaut, Richa Chadha, Jassie Gill, Yagya Bhasin, Neena Gupta

Rating: 3.5/5

Living in...

This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.

Dubai Rugby Sevens

November 30-December 2, at The Sevens, Dubai

Gulf Under 19

Pool A – Abu Dhabi Harlequins, Jumeirah College Tigers, Dubai English Speaking School 1, Gems World Academy

Pool B – British School Al Khubairat, Bahrain Colts, Jumeirah College Lions, Dubai English Speaking School 2

Pool C - Dubai College A, Dubai Sharks, Jumeirah English Speaking School, Al Yasmina

Pool D – Dubai Exiles, Dubai Hurricanes, Al Ain Amblers, Deira International School