Hair Raisers
While tennis can be the most conservative of sports, when it comes groundbreaking hairstyles, Wimbledon has long led the way
A pineapple on his head? Estonia’s Mark Lajal makes quite the Centre Court entrance last week.
Sideshow Bob was at Wimbledon last Monday. On Centre Court too, not in the royal box but on the the grass itself, on the other side of the net to defending men’s singles champion Carlos Alcaraz.
In person, Bob was smartly turned out and tall and lanky. A newcomer to the tournament, he played beautifully, spirit and aplomb in plenty and Nick Kyrgios in his television commentary role was smitten.
He played a bit like Nick too, all touch and the unexpected.
Even against Mr Kyrgios however, it was the hairstyle that set him apart. Bob - or Estonia’s Mark Lajal as he turned out to be - fronted up on court with what looked suspiciously like a pineapple plopped on the very top his head. Several long dreadlocked strands flapped about untethered or stuck out rigidly at 90 degree angles even when he charged and dived around.
Lajal’s lookalike, The Simpsons’ famed baddie Sideshow Bob
Everything else about the number 269 ranked Lahal was pristine, flawless white shirt, shorts and socks and a baby smooth face that looked like it had undergone the deepest of shaves perhaps just five minutes before he set foot on court.
In front of a society audience that boasted the consummate hairstyle chameleon David Beckham, Lajal looked the part. Looked bloody good in fact, an identikit version of Bob the evil genius from the Simpsons and it is nigh on impossible to see his entrance onto Centre Court (wearing an XXXL pair of white headphones as he strode out) being bettered this fortnight.
It is not the first time Wimbledon has set a follicular precedent and surprisingly for a tournament that can be the bastion of conservatism and the establishment, the contenders are many.
Let’s start with Mac.
Still recognisable around the world nearly 50 years on.
We first saw him in June 1977, 18-years-old, a touch podgy with a scowl that synced perfectly with a shock of frizzy auburn hair framed by a bright red headband that would have made him a fortune to exceed his on-court winnings had he (or anyone) had the foresight to copyright it instantly. Almost 50 years on the look is immediately recognisable.
As famous as sport gets. Bjorn Borg in his ‘70s heyday.
Mac’s great sparring partner Bjorn Borg was instantly cool and has remained so even now, in his late sixties. Pre serial winning, the 17-year-old Swede turned out in SW19 for the first time in summer 1973, the year of Donny Osmond and David Cassidy also. It’s probable that for a week at Wimbledon, the teen mania that surrounded Borg eclipsed the two singing superstars. It was madness, screams and jostling unseen there since, police escorts to and from court obligatory for the future champ.
The famed headband was yet to appear and Borg’s long flowing flocks could have misplaced him at a glance for Formula One’s James Hunt or Robert Plant from Led Zep. Neither the attention nor the hair hindered him as he made the quarter-finals that year, exiting to Yorkshire's Roger Taylor, a stat that seems only ever more surreal with time.
Three summers later when he began his unbroken grass and clay dominance, the Viking look was complete. The distinct thin striped Fila shirt, the stubble ahead of its time and locks swept from his face by a trademarked white (and blue and red lined) headband still available today on eBay. Cool as.
‘There's many a man hath more hair than wit,’ wrote William Shakespeare, appropriately in A Comedy of Errors, and in hindsight, Andre Agassi would most certainly agree.
Image is Everything screamed his 1989 Nike slogan and indeed it turned out to be just that.
Tennis’ most famous hirsuite player. Andre Agassi around 1991.
The Vegas showman played with his baggy shirt shorter at the front than the the back to shamelessly reveal an ironing board stomach when he rose up and belted a forehand full on. A luminous green and grey combo was a typical clothing palate while up top saw wild, long bleached hair invariably wrapped up by a simple white headband.
Agassi’s ‘Open’ is still the best tennis autobiography out there - though ‘A handful of summers’ by the 1960s journeyman Gordon Forbes probably tops it as this sport’s finest all round tome - and he did not disappoint when it came to his hair.
That his highs came from a different sort of pot than the ones he won on court and that he hated tennis made the headlines as expected but were pulped by another, more personal revelation.
Deep into his 1990 French Open final against Andres Gomez, Agassi the hot favourite, was sweating deeply.
He was on the cusp of what was being billed as the first of many grand slam titles (and which did eventually arrive in droves albeit much later than heralded) but all he could think about was his barnet. Which turned out to be not entirely all his.
“The evening before the match, I stood under the shower and felt my wig suddenly fall apart,” he said. “Probably I used the wrong hair rinse.”
Agassi’s brother helped him with a salvage attempt pre match but now on Court Philippe Chatrier before a global television audience of tens of millions, he could feel it slipping off. Going home with his hairpiece and reputation intact became the motivator, clinching the Coupe des Mousquetaires a secondary affair. When Agassi did eventually win the French Open men’s singles title nine years later it was all au natural, a bald and buzz cut fusion putting image to bed for good.
His evident joy - relief and even guilt maybe - at winning in Paris also cast serious doubt over the ‘I hate tennis’ line. Regardless, Agassi remains one of the absolute greats as well as a catalyst who hurled his sport into a more commercial age.
The much lesser known Dustin Brown caused an upset when he knocked Rafael Nadal out of Wimbledon in 2015 but the abiding memory is not the result - 7-5 3-6 6-4 6-4 to the world ranked 102 Brown - but the look.
Brown, a scrawny German of Jamaican heritage, turned out in a styleless, sleeveless shirt but with a hairstyle to outrival even Sideshow Bob.
Rafa can only dream of a look like Dustin Brown’s at Wimbledon 2015.
Long, bunched dreadlocks, coruscated down almost to the nape of his back and swung wildly around not so much his face as his entire body when he put his all into a shot. You couldn’t look away and maybe Nadal was mesmerised too, Brown thoroughly deserving of his second round victory.
The flamboyant of course only works when contrasted again the regulation.
Agassi’s nemesis Pete Sampras wore the same mop right across the 1990s and so clean cut was Roger Federer as he approached his mythical years that Gillette called upon him for a reshooting of the William Tell fable. Check out the YouTube link, Fed in a dinner suit twice knocking a bottle off the top of a film crew member’s head with a regulation serve. Smooth is the heavy undertone and it truly is.
There are 12 men left in the singles draw this year and while all will make a bigger dint in tennis history, it is Mark Lajal this year who has brought a smile to this most individual and conservative of sports in a way no-one else quite will.
ENDS