Her Way
Her Way
Eva Lys is learning what fits.
Eva Lys is learning what fits.
By Jessica SchifferPhotography by Lottermann & FuentesOriginally Featured Volume 4 of OPEN Tennis — BUY
Her Way
Eva Lys is Learning What Fits
By Jessica SchifferPhotography by Lotterman & FuentesOriginally Featured Volume 4 of OPEN Tennis — BUY
Lotterman & Fuentes
Lotterman & Fuentes
When I meet Eva Lys in the player’s cafe at Indian Wells, she does not have the body language of someone who just pulled out of the tournament due to a knee injury. She’s practically beaming, delighted by the prospect of talking about fashion—one of her favorite topics of late—with a fellow obsessive. In between bites of sushi, she pauses to assess my outfit, gassing me up like we’re old friends. I’m struck by how easy it is to talk to her, a rising star in tennis whose vibrant, silly personality has not been diluted by the media-trained vaguespeak we’ve become accustomed to.
That disarming charm is an extension of her presence on Instagram, where she posts like a true 24-year-old: funny memes, mirror selfies, lots of outfits, and a heavy dose of self-deprecation. For a generation of players raised online, identity isn’t separate from performance—it’s part of the package. Lys seems to understand that instinctively, even as the tennis world around her is still catching up.
“I feel like ‘my brand’ is just being very free, I’m very authentic and that’s what I’m trying to be online as well,” she explained. “I never have the feeling that I’m better or superior, just because I hit a ball a couple more times than other people. I want everyone who comes to my page to feel like I’m their friend.”
That openness hasn’t always landed the same way everywhere. In Germany, where Lys is from, there’s a more rigid idea of what a serious athlete should look like, particularly online, she tells me. When she’s dared to do something enjoyable after a loss, for example, the backlash has been swift.
“It’s always like, you lost today, you played bad—don’t post from the beach,” she said. “You have to mourn the loss.”
That same negativity showed up more recently in Madrid after she lost in the first round to Zhang Shuai and German headlines read as if she had been in a years-long rut. “German tennis hope Eva Lys is sinking deeper and deeper into crisis,” said one on Sport.de. Lys took to her Instagram stories to speak out against the drumbeat of hyperbolic press, writing in part, “Of course, I’m not currently in my best form, after having to take 2.5 months off. Still, it should be possible to talk about that in an objective and fair way.”
Learning to tune out all of this noise has been its own kind of development curve, particularly when it comes to being herself online. “You can’t be liked by everyone,” she said. “So whatever I put out, I just accept that it can be criticized.”
That mindset didn’t come naturally. Although Lys comes off like your average Gen-zer, she’s of course anything but. She established herself early as one of Germany’s top tennis prospects, reaching No. 1 in the country’s junior rankings in 2018 and going on to win multiple ITF titles before breaking onto the WTA Tour in 2022. But it was at last year’s Australian Open, where she made it to the fourth round, that people really started paying attention. Since then, she’s been on a steady, if slightly uneven, climb—picking up deep runs, notching a Top 10 win, and briefly cracking the Top 40, all while figuring out how to handle the expectations and commentary that come with being in the public eye.
For now, she’s focused on easing back into the sport after injury rehab.
“I’ve never regretted a day I took it slow, because I have a very sensitive body, and my approach to everything is less is more,” said Lys, who has spondyloarthritis, an autoimmune disease that causes pain, stiffness, and fatigue. “So I’m trying to keep it that way but, with the tennis schedule and the points I have to defend, I can lose sight of that mindset at times.”
Running parallel to her tennis career is a love of fashion that’s blossomed since she left Asics and signed with Lacoste in January, a switch that’s given her more fashion-forward looks and an open dialogue with the design team, allowing her to provide direct feedback on fit and style that could show up across the brand’s women’s tennis collections in the near future.
“The quality of their stuff is insane and I love how classic it is, but they also give me the opportunity to say what I would love to wear and let me put a new generation twist on it,” she said. The ability to play with the brand’s increasingly cool ready-to-wear clothes off-court for events and photoshoots has also been a dream come true for a girl who grew up scrolling Tumblr for outfit inspiration.
The partnership reflects a dynamic that’s becoming increasingly common in tennis—brands looking beyond the top 10 for players who can help shape not just how clothes perform, but how they’re perceived. Lys, with her mix of taste, openness, and growing visibility, sits squarely in that next tier: not yet a household name, but already influential in the ways that matter to fashion.
When I asked Pelagia Kolotouros, the creative director of Lacoste, why she wanted to sign Lys, she said it was a mix of her tennis potential, jovial personality, and taste for fashion. “Eva is authentic, spontaneous, a hard worker, very sociable and optimistic—all of these attributes fit perfectly with the brand.”
However aligned the new partnership may be, a kit can still be limiting for self-expression. “Tennis is a very conservative sport in some ways,” said Lys, adding that since she has to repeat her outfits often, she looks for small ways to express herself within the confines of the court, whether that’s with bright nails, gold jewelry, or charms on her racket bag.
Lys is passionate about bridging fashion and tennis more broadly, noting that while the luxury partnerships are understandably relegated to top players, she believes there’s space for fashion brands to get more involved with those who are outside of the top 10 and has been advocating for it behind the scenes.
“I think there’s room to do so much more with it,” she says. “If we’re having a tennis match and playing on court for two hours, you see two faces and if you don’t remember their names, you’ll remember what they were wearing.”
That interest in fashion has started to pull her into spaces far beyond the tour. Last year, she was invited to Vogue’sexclusive Forces of Fashion conversation series in Germany, where she unexpectedly found herself on stage and in the same orbit as the designer Jean Paul Gaultier, leading to photos of the two of them chuckling that she was quick to post online.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be in Germany,” she said. “It all came together last minute, and I was so nervous, but it was such an honor to be invited.”
For Lys, the moment wasn’t just memorable because of her proximity to fashion’s biggest names, but about what it unlocked for her: a sense that her interests outside of tennis are not so much a distraction but inspirational fuel for her tennis career.
“Being around people who have that much passion for what they do—it gives me energy,” she said. “And I can take that back into my tennis.”
Now, she regularly texts her management team about events she wants to go to one day—whether it’s a runway show or The Oscars—not to chase clout but out of sheer curiosity. It’s a little act of manifestation, as her generation likes to say.
“I just love meeting new, successful people and understanding how they got where they are,” she explains. “Like I know why athletes do what they do, but what drives someone in fashion or acting? I find those stories so interesting.”
I’m also told we can expect to see an on-court designer collaboration for Lys in the next few years.
In the meantime, Lys is still in that exciting in-between space—established enough to be noticed, but not yet so fixed that her path is defined. In a sport that has long rewarded conformity, her willingness to be seen as she is—online, off-court, and increasingly in fashion—offers a glimpse of what tennis could look like if it leaned into personality instead of sanding it down.
