christos_liaskos
Professional
I dont know if this is just me noticing this recently or if it is actually a recent phenomenon, but there seem to be loads of players out there with clothing sponsors that i have never heard of. Ljubicic comes to mind, and I think I saw Lopez recently wearing something I had never seen before, or maybe I getting confused with Chela because he definitely had something new. For a while he had been wearing Topper, which again was a new brand to me, but now he has changed again to something I have never seen.
Say what you want about players like Ljubicic but I would have thought someone who has been at no3 in the world would have some 'known' brand name as his sponsor for the rest of his career, especially while he is still ranked in the top50 (now of course he is in the top15 but noone was really going to predict that).
Baghdatis is another strange situation. One of the biggest fan favourites out there and he doesn't have a sponsor (i'm not exactly certain what his situation is, my point is that I would expect a big sponsor to be after a guy like that). Hewitt with Yonex? Surely after being no1 and winning two slams he should have a better sponsor than that guaranteed for him for the rest of his career? Nalbandian didnt quite reach the heights of Hewitt but again I would have thought he could do better than Yonex.
It just seems weird that guys who have been in the top10 or 20 and are regular fixtures in the top50-100 throughout their whole careers and are pretty much house hold names to most tennis fans end up with these sponsors. Then you can have players in the futures who have some kind of arrangement with much more well known sponsors. I'm guessing some of these are situations with the sponsors trying to make a smart signing with up and coming players who they think will be big. And some of the players will actually be buying their own clothes and just happen to be wearing adidas and nike but arent actually sponsored by them.
Is it just me noticing this now but has actually always been like this? If it's new, do you guys think maybe it's because of the economic situation across the world? Big sponsors cutting back? At the same time though, I thought the current economic situation was supposed to be bad for the smaller companies, yet they seem to be the ones appearing on the tour more and more.
Say what you want about players like Ljubicic but I would have thought someone who has been at no3 in the world would have some 'known' brand name as his sponsor for the rest of his career, especially while he is still ranked in the top50 (now of course he is in the top15 but noone was really going to predict that).
Baghdatis is another strange situation. One of the biggest fan favourites out there and he doesn't have a sponsor (i'm not exactly certain what his situation is, my point is that I would expect a big sponsor to be after a guy like that). Hewitt with Yonex? Surely after being no1 and winning two slams he should have a better sponsor than that guaranteed for him for the rest of his career? Nalbandian didnt quite reach the heights of Hewitt but again I would have thought he could do better than Yonex.
It just seems weird that guys who have been in the top10 or 20 and are regular fixtures in the top50-100 throughout their whole careers and are pretty much house hold names to most tennis fans end up with these sponsors. Then you can have players in the futures who have some kind of arrangement with much more well known sponsors. I'm guessing some of these are situations with the sponsors trying to make a smart signing with up and coming players who they think will be big. And some of the players will actually be buying their own clothes and just happen to be wearing adidas and nike but arent actually sponsored by them.
Is it just me noticing this now but has actually always been like this? If it's new, do you guys think maybe it's because of the economic situation across the world? Big sponsors cutting back? At the same time though, I thought the current economic situation was supposed to be bad for the smaller companies, yet they seem to be the ones appearing on the tour more and more.