Did USO officials really tell Haas to change out of his muscle top?

[MAXXply]

I'm thinking back to an incident at the US Open several years ago, before Nadal came on the scene and made the sleeveless look de riguer.
Tommy Haas was asked by officials before the match to remove his then-novel muscle top and change into something more conventional.
Am I remembering right? What year was it and what really happened? Did Haas breach some sort of arcane tournament attire rule?

[master_stringer_mitchy]

would be surprising, the us open tends to showcase the most outragous tennis atire there is. never know though, if they were unsure if it was performance enhancing or something, like some of the fuss there was with the swimming suits that are being used now who knows

[ngtaj88]

I'm thinking back to an incident at the US Open several years ago, before Nadal came on the scene and made the sleeveless look de riguer.
Tommy Haas was asked by officials before the match to remove his then-novel muscle top and change into something more conventional.
Am I remembering right? What year was it and what really happened? Did Haas breach some sort of arcane tournament attire rule?

ya i remember this. this was waaayyy back. they told him he wasnt allowed to wear that and he came back with a funny comment saying something like "so serena can run around in a cat suit but i cant wear a sleeveless shirt?"

[tennis_balla]

Yea I remember this, can't remember what year and the Serena comment he made was priceless, dead on too. Just goes to show how much favoritism is in these tournaments. Had an American player wore a sleeveless shirt they would of been fine with it. I think this was like 2002 or 2003.

[West Coast Ace]

I can't remember if it was at the USO or the New Haven tournament the week before. Maybe he tried it at New Haven, they told him to change, and before he got to the USO they told him "don't even think about it..."

[Fee]

It was the USO, it was shown on TV just moments after it happened so it could not have been New Haven. The officials went back and forth on whether he should be allowed to wear it, decided they needed to meet about it and establish a rule, so Tommy was not allowed to wear it. Then he went out injured so I believe James Blake is the one who has the official honor of being the first to wear a sleeveless shirt at a Grand Slam.

[West Coast Ace]

I guess we all could have done this earlier - Google is our friend :) :

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=347165

http://www.tennisnews.com/exclusive.php?pID=4108

[aceroberts13]

Very rediculous that this incident occured. I don't agree with it at all, but one thing I think should be banned from tournament attire: The Igor Andreev under armour turbin. Yuck.

[West Coast Ace]

Very rediculous that this incident occured. Yes and no. Tennis is a sport of traditions. One of those was male players wearing shirts with collars and sleeves. Obviously for health reasons, the sleeveless helps the players cool off - and for that reason it eventually won out.

[aceroberts13]

Yes and no. Tennis is a sport of traditions. One of those was male players wearing shirts with collars and sleeves. Obviously for health reasons, the sleeveless helps the players cool off - and for that reason it eventually won out.

Touche.

10 char.

[sargeinaz]

Obviously for health reasons, the sleeveless helps the players cool off - and for that reason it eventually won out.

I seriously doubt that. Sleeves have never caused death/serious injury on a tennis court.

[woodrow1029]

I'm thinking back to an incident at the US Open several years ago, before Nadal came on the scene and made the sleeveless look de riguer.
Tommy Haas was asked by officials before the match to remove his then-novel muscle top and change into something more conventional.
Am I remembering right? What year was it and what really happened? Did Haas breach some sort of arcane tournament attire rule?
It was I believe 2003. Norm Chryst was the chair umpire. He called for the supervisor to check it out because it had not been tried before. The supervisor with the tournament referee, Brian Earley decided that it was not a legal shirt as it did not project a professional tennis image. After the tournament, Nike made the seams around the armpits tighter fitting and finished off the seams to make the shirt look more professional for on court wear. After that, FILA, Oakley and Yonex had their sleeveless shirts approved by the ITF and ATP. After Adidas made their shirt, theirs was approved. A lot of the players at the Futures and challenger level didn't know that there were only certain sleeveless that were allowed and were told by the supervisors that they were not legal. The next year, the ITF and ATP decided that any sleeveless shirt was legal as long as it was not T-shirt material, and the seams around the armpits were finished off and it didn't look like a basketball shirt. It was then left up to the supervisors at the tournament to decide on the look of the shirt. You will also notice that there are no commercial identification patches such as Samsung or Michelin on any of the mens' sleeveless shirts. The ATP and ITF decided if a male player wore a sleeveless, then the commercial ID's that are ONLY allowed on the sleeves could not be moved to the front of the shirt. The WTA has a different rule though. They are allowed to have commercial identifications on the front of their shirt if and only if they are wearing a sleeveless shirt.

[Fee]

It was 2002 as written in the links provided by West Coast Ace.

[viktorkwan]

Over time, the acceptable dress code for the men's tour has changed quite significantly.

It wasn't too long ago that all players were wearing collared shirts.

Pat Rafter tested that rule by wearing a Reebok shirt that had a small standing collar. I can't remember exactly which tournament it was, but I'm pretty sure it was at one of the US Open lead-up tournaments. From what I could remember, the officials had to get one of such shirts from Rafter to determine if the small collar did in fact breach the dress code.

Since that incident, it wasn't too long after that we see players wearing round-neck shirts to play in, as the dress code was gradually relaxed.

And of course, there's the Tommy Haas incident as documented by the other respondents, and since then, there's been all these sleeveless shirts that players (e.g. Blake, Nadal, Koubek, Moya and Hewitt) wear, as allowed by the further relaxed dress code.

[Holly]

I'm thinking back to an incident at the US Open several years ago, before Nadal came on the scene and made the sleeveless look de riguer.
Tommy Haas was asked by officials before the match to remove his then-novel muscle top and change into something more conventional.
Am I remembering right? What year was it and what really happened? Did Haas breach some sort of arcane tournament attire rule?

I dont know about this topic but I LOVE your name (take a look at my avatar). I also wrote a thread about the Maxply (does anyone use the Maxply).....please give us your opinion on the stick.

[stanfordtennis alum]

yea, this did happen at the USO some time back.