Sunglasses?

R

Ruark

Professional
What is the main reason I never, NEVER see pros (or even high level local players) wearing sunglasses while playing, even in blazing desert sun? I can't imagine playing without mine. I have a few ideas, but I'd like to hear yours.
 
Very few players wear sunglasses. But, they do exist. Stosur, Tipsarevic, Robredo. The main reason is probably different for different players. Some of the common reasons are: peripheral view, fogging, and lastly it could be just because of lack of habit in using them.

I don't think those UV are good for our eyes - I now wear them most of the time, unless it's too dark.
 
Chung from the younger players is wearing sunglasses.

Wearing glasses can be a problem, if you have any sort of difficulty recognising colour as most sunglasses further dim the colours of the objects.

It can also be a problem, as sunglasses that are not dedicated sport glasses can have glass lenses.

Other than that, a dedicated pair of sports sunglasses with the suitable lens tint is quite useful.

:cool:
 
Personally I find that I can not trust them staying secure either mid point or on serve which keeps me from concentrating fully on the game at hand. Maybe the pro's think the same given that they are running and changing direction a lot!
 
I think most of them are concerned about distortion.

Personally I can’t imagine playing without them but I also have very sensitive eyes.

If you’re looking for a good pair of sports sunglasses Bolle makes a bunch of styles with quality as good as Raybans or Oakley but for half the price. Just make sure they are polarized.
 
WestboroChe said:
I think most of them are concerned about distortion.

Personally I can’t imagine playing without them but I also have very sensitive eyes.

If you’re looking for a good pair of sports sunglasses Bolle makes a bunch of styles with quality as good as Raybans or Oakley but for half the price. Just make sure they are polarized.
Click to expand...

Bolle, Smith, Oakley, Adidas, Nike, Scott, Arnette, Kaenon and many more make sports glasses suitable for tennis and other sports.

Ray-ban, Serengeti, Persol less so, not because they are inferior, but because they have predominantly models for lifestyle wear.

8-)
 
Tennis_Hands said:
Chung from the younger players is wearing sunglasses.

Wearing glasses can be a problem, if you have any sort of difficulty recognising colour as most sunglasses further dim the colours of the objects.

It can also be a problem, as sunglasses that are not dedicated sport glasses can have glass lenses.

Other than that, a dedicated pair of sports sunglasses with the suitable lens tint is quite useful.

:cool:
Click to expand...
Different lense colors can help increase contrast and make it easier to see.
Tennis_Hands said:
Bolle, Smith, Oakley, Adidas, Nike, Scott, Arnette, Kaenon and many more make sports glasses suitable for tennis and other sports.

Ray-ban, Serengeti, Persol less so, not because they are inferior, but because they have predominantly models for lifestyle wear.

:cool:
Click to expand...
yes. That is true but I played for years with Rayban Predators in muggy New England and never once did they slip.
 
WestboroChe said:
Different lense colors can help increase contrast and make it easier to see.

yes. That is true but I played for years with Rayban Predators in muggy New England and never once did they slip.
Click to expand...

Yes, depending on conditions and court colour different lens tints can be more or less useful.

As for Ray-Bans, as long as one finds a model that stays on his face and with plastic lens, everything is fine. They are quality sunglasses.

:cool:
 
I never felt like I needed them when I was younger but as I get older they definitely come in handy.

I do prefer to play with out them just for clearness, but if the sun is a problem they are on. Problem being in a low spot, or glare on the court

I think many pros are playing under lights, indoors, or in settings where the sun is only a factor for lobs and serves. I have seen pros wear them in conditions that dictate it.
 
I am always curious why more players don't use them as well. If you look at baseball, almost all of the players wear sunglasses. I used to think maybe the stadiums blocked the sun so it wasn't in their eyes directly.
 
If you're a left hander playing in the afternoons in Melbourne - and, I imagine, most parts of Australia and the southern hemisphere generally - sunglasses are more or less essential when playing - and especially when serving - from the southern end, depending somewhat on the time of the year and perhaps your age. I still remember watching McEnroe playing at Kooyong, and him saying: 'Can this sun possibly get any worse for me?' I'm LMFAO at the poor right handers during the all too rare morning hits though...
 
aegon-championship-day-one.jpg
 
onehandbh said:
How grand slams have been won by someone wearing sunglasses.

I can only think of one.
Click to expand...


Jaroslav Drobny? Roland Garros 1951 & '52, and Wimbledon 1954.

Drobny--Jaroslav-2_o4.jpg


From his autobiography:

"In [an ice-hockey] match against a Viennese club in Prague I was injured for the first and only time in my life. Colliding with a player I fell and his skate cut my eye. By the amount of blood on my clothes and the ice, people thought I had lost my eye and two spectators fainted. It was not as bad as it appeared and in hospital I had the cut stitched. The after-effect was worse and from then on I began to get short sighted."

He's a bit of a trivial pursuit question; he remains the only man to win a Wimbledon singles title with glasses. Most people would likely guess Arthur Ashe, who wore contacts for his final in 1975. (On the women's side, both BJK and Martina have done it.)

There's a clip of him switching from sunglasses to normal spectacles before his trophy presentation at SW19, timestamped at 1m 40s.

 
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I think it's the same reason many baseball players don't wear them batting (admittedly some do, but most don't). They can cause a slight hindrance in depth perception which then screws up timing and contact. This is not ideal when hitting a ball of any sort that's moving fast.
 
Alcawrath said:
I think it's the same reason many baseball players don't wear them batting (admittedly some do, but most don't). They can cause a slight hindrance in depth perception which then screws up timing and contact. This is not ideal when hitting a ball of any sort that's moving fast.
Click to expand...
With certain style lenses this can be a problem I think. Notice more of the baseball players wearing those flat style glasses. Not sure really how to describe it, but the lenses are like completely flat it seems.

Whereas with something like Oakley Radars or the Flak Jackets/2.0s you see a lot of tennis players wearing, very curved lens which can create a sort of "fish bowel" effect. Was something I had to get used to with my prescription Flak 2.0s.
 
Alcawrath said:
True, so which part of my decision making will win out? My logical side telling me it's much wiser to give up a few points to protect my eyes long term or my competitive side that will refuse to wear sunglasses in hopes that I may win a few crucial points during meaningless rec matches :unsure:
Click to expand...
I wear sunglasses in tournaments and have no problems with depth-perception or timing the ball. I actually see the ball much better with sun glasses and I always get the polarized lenses. They have helped me see the ball better. You do what ever works for you and it works for me.
 
For those of you who wear contact lenses I can recommend the acuvue oasys transitions that turn dark in bright conditions, like glasses with transition lenses.

I used to play with sunglasses all the time but find that these contacts do a good enough job in all but the brightest conditions.
 
The sun is yellow.
Tennis balls are yellow.
The wavelength of light that sunglasses need to filter is the same as the ball which makes tennis particularly challenging.
There are a few brands that specialize in tennis glasses that attempt to account for this, but it's a challenge.

Theoretically because of distortion there is a bit of a 'slowly' and a change in depth perception.
To us mortals, that may not matter.
To pros who are playing with a level of margin much smaller, that might make the difference in clean vs. framed, or in vs. out.
 
Connor35 said:
The sun is yellow.
Tennis balls are yellow.
The wavelength of light that sunglasses need to filter is the same as the ball which makes tennis particularly challenging.
There are a few brands that specialize in tennis glasses that attempt to account for this, but it's a challenge.

Theoretically because of distortion there is a bit of a 'slowly' and a change in depth perception.
To us mortals, that may not matter.
To pros who are playing with a level of margin much smaller, that might make the difference in clean vs. framed, or in vs. out.
Click to expand...
I have blue lenses and see the ball beautifully. There have been players like Sam Stosur, Arnaud Clement, Janko Tipsravic to name a few have been successful wearing sunglasses.
 
After my younger sister (also a tennis player) was diagnosed with pterygium, sort of like a callus on the eye due to sun exposure, I started wearing sunglasses many years ago. I wear them every time I'm on court. I find nothing but positives from wearing sunglasses when I'm on court. With modern sports glasses there is no problem with any distortion or depth perception. I've worked with many WTA and ATP players and have asked why they don't wear sunglasses. The most common answer was sweat, that it would cause the glasses to slide off the nose. I have not experienced that. Another common answer was that they just didn't want something on their face while playing. Again, with the light modern sports glasses I don't notice them. In fact, the only time I notice anything is when I don't have them on. Another answer is that they felt they may lose peripheral vision due to the glasses. Again, that is not something I have experienced. It seems to me that wearing glasses could be a good endorsement opportunity for pros along with the other benefits. I too am a bit surprised sunglasses are not more common on the pro tours.
 
The best sunglasses I've found was by accident. I had a pair of Maui Jim's that I wore driving. Vacation....lost my MJ's after about 6 years. I had a pair of Costa's that I got on the cheap through a first responder program. I started wearing them to play tennis. They are awesome, highly recommended.
 
I was not able to successfully wear sunglasses this summer while playing tennis. I know I am going to sounds like a goof but distortion was really bad especially on serving. I would actually whiff on my serve and have to ditch my sunglasses as when wearing sunglasses where I was seeing the ball and where the ball actually was were 2 different things. I tried a few serves and said to heck with this and tossed them aside.

I do worry about the sun and eyes as my dad passed away from melanoma of the eye and I do not wear sunglasses and probably should.

Do you guys know of some that do not have this distortion?

I am a contact leans wearer and the brand I wear are fantastic and I will never go back to prescription lenses.
 
@LOBALOT - I wear contacts as well and don't have any issues. On another note, I just finished (another) two weeks using fluorouracil cream, two applications a day for two weeks. Around the 12th day, I thought I was going to die it hurt so bad. But, after the weekend and some ginger washing, it's all good. I had Moh's surgery on my nose a couple of years ago to remove a cancerous basal cell. And at my last visit (3 weeks ago) I had to benign basal cells scraped off my shoulders - they called them the twins. Danged if I know how I got them because I don't go without a shirt. The dermatologist told me I need to apply sunblock every day whether I go out in the sun or not. I'm taking her advice to heart. A doctor friend of mine who is of Italian/Lebanese descent said "You need some of my people in you". I replied "My folks are from Scotland/Ireland. We don't do sun (well)."
 
Rabbit said:
@LOBALOT - I wear contacts as well and don't have any issues. On another note, I just finished (another) two weeks using fluorouracil cream, two applications a day for two weeks. Around the 12th day, I thought I was going to die it hurt so bad. But, after the weekend and some ginger washing, it's all good. I had Moh's surgery on my nose a couple of years ago to remove a cancerous basal cell. And at my last visit (3 weeks ago) I had to benign basal cells scraped off my shoulders - they called them the twins. Danged if I know how I got them because I don't go without a shirt. The dermatologist told me I need to apply sunblock every day whether I go out in the sun or not. I'm taking her advice to heart. A doctor friend of mine who is of Italian/Lebanese descent said "You need some of my people in you". I replied "My folks are from Scotland/Ireland. We don't do sun (well)."
Click to expand...

I do have some of that in my decent from my dad's side of the family but I still burn like crazy. My mom is of English decent although goes back generations here in the states. I think I have found some sports/tennis sunglasses that claim to minimize distortion so I am going to give them a go and see if they will work for me.

Thanks @Rabbit !!!!
 
Rabbit said:
The best sunglasses I've found was by accident. I had a pair of Maui Jim's that I wore driving. Vacation....lost my MJ's after about 6 years. I had a pair of Costa's that I got on the cheap through a first responder program. I started wearing them to play tennis. They are awesome, highly recommended.
Click to expand...
I’m wearing a pair of Maui Jim’s now with a blue lens. I love them. I’ve also had a pair Costa too, they were really nice. . I can’t imagine not wearing sunglasses anymore. I’ve worn them for 23 years now.
 
My MJ’s has a brownish lens. For tennis I prefer the blue lens of the Costa. I think they’re also glass.
 
I started wearing sunglasses on court when I became a full time pro back in 2000 .. I only wear a certain style of arnettes that are perfect in every way for tennis players as they’re the only sunglasss I can find that don’t get in the way of my curved bill from my hats. They are low slung on the face .And the shape is outta this world Perfect for my head .
Lenses are that perfect shade not too dark not too light polarized .
And they’re not red neck nascar style like so many sport glasses are that are just embarrassing to me .
 
teachingprotx said:
I started wearing sunglasses on court when I became a full time pro back in 2000 .. I only wear a certain style of arnettes that are perfect in every way for tennis players as they’re the only sunglasss I can find that don’t get in the way of my curved bill from my hats. They are low slung on the face .And the shape is outta this world Perfect for my head .
Lenses are that perfect shade not too dark not too light polarized .
And they’re not red neck nascar style like so many sport glasses are that are just embarrassing to me .
Click to expand...
Do you know which model of Arnette?
 
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