Every fan of tennis or a player understands how important the equipment is. Yes, skill, stamina, knowledge, and experience are the most important factors if you want to be a good player in this sport, but having the right shoes, clothes and racquet are also essential. There is also one huge part of every set of tennis equipment that everyone forgets about. Tennis socks. Yes, that is right. They’re also just as important.
There probably is a reason why all of those professionals wear them, right? Well, if you want to understand exactly why professionals arrange them, what are the benefits, and what type of socks you should be buying for this sport, you will need to learn the golden rules of wearing tennis socks. Since this is a very niche subject, but also a very important one, I wanted to write this article and tell you about those golden rules and everything else you need to know on this topic.
Always go for quality material
Socks are always meant to be accessible and affordable for everyone. And, that makes a lot of sense for this kind of clothing. The most important purpose is to protect your freight and to keep them warm, especially during colder days.
However, usually, the socks that we wear on regular basis are of much lower quality materials, making them awful for other purposes such as sports, especially for tennis.
The quality of the material is essential because it needs to protect you from pressure, friction, moisture, sweating, etc. While you are in your tennis shoes, there will be a lot of movement which results in fiction and fiction leads to blisters. Dealing with blisters is always an awful experience. Because of this, you should be looking for tennis socks that are made from a mix of cotton with nylon, spandex, or any other similar moisture-wicking material.
They need to look good
When exercising, most people do not really worry about how they look and that is how it should be. When you are training, you should only care about being comfortable and practicing your skill. Everything else is not important.
However, if you are playing in a serious and competitive match, it is probably a good idea to think about your style. Combine your apparel together with your shoes and combine your shoes with your tennis socks.
Do not worry, finding a good-looking style when playing tennis is not that difficult. Professional players have already been doing that for decades. So, finding the right socks will prove easier than you might think.
Comfort is the number one priority
Everything I mentioned in this article is important, but the single most essential thing you have to worry about is comfort. If you do not feel comfortable in a pair of socks, you should change them immediately. You don’t have to wait to “break them in”. It is not shoes. If they do not fit your feet, they never will. Give them to someone else, throw them away, or do whatever you want with them, just do not wear them.
Now, you will need to look for a new pair. Make sure that you try them before you buy them. Again, comfort should be your number one priority because you will be wearing that pair of socks four hours while training or playing a competitive match. If you are still not convinced, you can always read more about the importance of finding comfortable tennis socks. You would not want a pair of shredded cotton to be the cause of your match loss, right?
Buy in bulk
Another golden rule or at least a very good advice is to always buy tennis socks in bulk. Why is this a good idea? Well, it is no secret that tennis players are constantly going through new apparel because of tearing. In other words, you should be expecting that even your new pair can break only after a few days of training.
If you have spent hours or days to find the right pair, it is a good idea to just buy in bulk. Since finding a good pair of nylons or cotton is very rare, why not just get 10 of them? Yes, they will be visually identical, but is that really a bad thing? Whenever the cotton starts to give-in, you can always switch to that same exact model, retaining the same level of comfort.
Always go white
If there is one golden rule that is respected by all players around the world both professional and amateurs is that their pair of socks are always white.Of course, this is not mandatory at all, but it is recommended to stick with this tradition. That is what the audience wants to see.
Keep in mind, there is no obvious benefit to wearing a white color. It is not going to protect you from blisters, keep sweat away, or anything like that. It is just more aesthetically pleasing for everyone. The white color can be easily combined with any other piece of equipment or clothing. White can go great with your shoes, shorts, shirt, and even your racquet.
Sweat-wicking
Previously, I mentioned that the material used for this kind of clothing always needs to be either from cotton or a mix of cotton with nylon or spandex. The mix from these two materials results in better moisture-wicking. However, you need to understand just how important that kind of feature really is.
Whenever you are playing a long match, your legs and feet are bound to start sweating inside of the shoes and above them. The entire purpose of good tennis socks is to wick away all the sweat to keep your feet dry throughout the entire match. This is a golden rule for every professional player. There are a probably few more golden rules I could mention that are related to wearing tennis socks, but I believe these six that were mentioned above are the most important ones.