The Naomi Osaka Allen Iverson tribute that opened her 2026 US Open campaign on Arthur Ashe Stadium was one of the most considered acts of sporting homage seen on a tennis court in years, cornrows, shooting sleeve, headband and all. Before a ball was struck against Anastasia Zakharova in the first round on Monday, Osaka had already made her statement.
Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam winner, according to Page Six, and she has long understood that what you wear into an arena carries weight. This time, she leaned fully into that understanding. She walked onto Ashe in a custom, all-white gown by Who Decides War, tulle meeting French terry, a fabric pairing that sounds unlikely but lands somewhere between ballgown and battered practice kit. Stitched into the fabric were news clippings from across her career. Then she removed it, and the real outfit appeared.
The Naomi Osaka Allen Iverson Tribute, Piece by Piece
Beneath the gown: a simple black Nike tank top with grey trim, hoops-adjacent in its cut. Above her neck: intricate cornrows that the durag she had worn to training earlier in the week had been quietly concealing. On her head, a black-and-red headband of the kind Iverson wore throughout his time in Philadelphia. On one arm, a black shooting sleeve. On the other, a red wristband pulled up around the elbow. The full look was styled by Law Roach.
After the match, Osaka posted the outfit on Instagram with a single caption: ‘The Answer’, Iverson’s nickname, according to ESPN. Two words that did the work of a paragraph.
The designers behind the Who Decides War gown, Téla D’Amore and Ev Bravado, were specific about the reference points. Speaking to ESPN, they said the look drew on Iverson’s grey sweats and “the nonconformist cadence with which he moved through the world as an athlete.” That framing matters. This was not a tribute built around a single iconic image but around something harder to replicate: a whole attitude.
Basketball and Tennis, Sharing the Same Court
The 2026 US Open has seen an unusual crossover between the two sports. Aryna Sabalenka won her first-round match in a Knicks-orange mesh dress. Carlos Alcaraz wore a Phoenix Suns-esque Nike jersey during the mixed-doubles tournament. The tennis world, it seems, is in a basketball mood, and Osaka’s tribute sits at the sharpest end of that tendency.
The groundwork for Monday’s look had been laid in public for days. At a press conference held a couple of days before the tournament, Osaka appeared in a tee featuring Iverson’s iconic SLAM ‘Soul On Ice’ cover. She spoke about what he meant to her. “For me he’s a trailblazer,” she said. “[He shifted] the whole conversation around clothes in sports and also expressing yourself through style.” She arrived at a subsequent training session in an oversized tee and a white durag, a warmer-up act for what was coming.
Iverson’s influence on how athletes dress, both inside and outside their arenas, runs deep. His cornrows, tattoos, oversized clothing and jewellery gave a generation of players permission to show up as themselves rather than as the sport’s approved version of an athlete. Osaka has taken that thread and pulled it through a sport with its own long history of policing personal expression. She has spoken openly about her mental health, pushed back against press obligations she found harmful, and shown up at every major tournament wearing something that refuses to blend in.
Her pre-match arrivals have referenced anime, her Japanese heritage, and, at a previous US Open, a series of bedazzled Labubus worn as accessories. Each one a considered choice rather than a casual grab from the wardrobe.
The Allen Iverson tribute that landed on Ashe on Monday was, in that context, a natural step forward: more specific, more deeply researched, and built with the input of designers who understood exactly what they were being asked to channel. Téla D’Amore and Ev Bravado’s description of Iverson’s “nonconformist cadence” is a useful lens for Osaka too. She beat Zakharova, moved into the next round, and left the stadium with the caption doing its quiet work on the internet: ‘The Answer.’
