- Destanee Aiava wore vintage tennis gear she found on eBay to the 2025 Australian Open.
- She had replica dresses worn by past champions, including Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic.
- Aiava went through three qualifying rounds to earn a place in the main draw.
If you followed the first week of the 2025 Australian Open, you probably noticed a lot of the same outfits.
Adidas has dressed its players in bold red for the first game of the year, known as “The Happy Slam”. Many of Nike’s athletes, including Aryna Sabalenka and Carlos Alcaraz, are wearing green and yellow.
It is not uncommon for tennis players to wear the same outfit throughout the tournament due to their endorsement contracts.
But for qualifier Destanee Aiava, who doesn’t have a clothing sponsor, her on-court styles were completely up to her – and she chose to pay homage to past champions Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki and Ana Ivanovic by wearing their looks iconic from the late 2000s and early 2010s.
However, she couldn’t get the gear through Nike or Adidas. Aiava bought the dresses used online.
“I found them on eBay – for double the original price,” she told tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg. “But yeah, I love looking at Depop, Facebook Marketplace, eBay to find old, vintage clothes that I used to love when I was little.”
Ranked just inside the top 200, the 24-year-old Australian-Samoan had to battle through three rounds of qualifying rounds to earn a place in the main draw.
For her first match in qualifying, she wore a light pink Nike dress that Sharapova had worn at the 2012 US Open.
For the second round, Aiava got her hands on a pink and purple number worn by Ana Ivanovic at the 2010 US Open.
Aiava, left, wears a replica of Ana Ivanovic’s 2010 US Open dress. Robert Prange | Matthew Stockman
She wore a different pink Ivanovic dress for her third round match, which propelled her into the AO main draw.
Heading into the first round of the main draw match, the BBC asked Aiava about her choice of outfit. She said she found one on Facebook: “I can go get it. It’s only $35, which is a steal.”
The BBC did not confirm whether she had bought it. Aiava walked onto the court in a sky blue Adidas dress previously worn by Caroline Wozniacki at the 2013 US Open and claimed her first Grand Slam main draw win. Advancing to the round of 64 earned her AUD$200,000 ($124,280 USD).
“It means I can bring someone to travel this year and I can afford to go to all the tournaments I want,” Aiava said after the comeback win. “I have trouble traveling on my own. The fact that I can bring my fiance and hopefully one of my family members with me to big countries makes a world of difference.”
Aiava in the Adidas outfit Wozniacki wore at the 2013 US Open. Hannah Peters | Mike Stobe
In what would be her final match at the 2025 Australian Open, Aiava wore another Sharapova number as she battled American Danielle Collins, who eventually prevailed in three sets.
“Actually, it was from one of the girls I used to play tennis with when I was little,” Aiava told 9News about the fit. “She reached out and offered to lend me a dress and I actually ran out of options too, so I’m very lucky.”
Aiava, competing in her final match at the 2025 Australian Open, wears a replica of Sharapova’s 2011 French Open dress. Robert Prange | Clive Brunskill
Aiava told the BBC that she is “hoping to get a sponsor”. But in the meantime, “I like to choose whatever I want to wear and buy whatever I want.”
She told 9News that if she continues the tradition, she would like to eventually bring back a piece of Serena Williams. However, she was out of her budget for this event: “They are quite hard to find and quite expensive.”
