The 2026 Australian Open Shoe Report
The 2026 Australian Open Shoe Report
Our favorites for performance, lifestyle, and everything in between.
Our favorites for performance, lifestyle, and everything in between.
By Tim NewcombJanuary 23, 2025
It’s all about Melbourne-themed collections and tournament-specific colorways in the 2026 Australian Open shoe closet. Coco Gauff leads the way with her signature shoe, and while a few players and brands—such as K-Swiss with Andrey Rublev and Frances Tiafoe, and Nike with Naomi Osaka—have special Australian Open player-edition models, many athletes are simply sporting their sponsor’s inline colorways for the tournament.
Most majors tend to have a color or two that a few brands latch on to (unbeknownst to each other, of course), but the AO 2026 is a smorgasbord of brightness, with neon yellow, orange, red, blue, and purple all part of the array.
New Balance CG2
Coco Gauff
Coco Gauff says her AO kit design isn’t just concerned with performance, “but also about style and self-expression.” Her signature CG2 on-court shoes from New Balance play to that theme with a colorway inspired by the Australian landscape meant to “radiate optimism” with hot marigold (think bright orange), navy blue, and daybreak periwinkle. Gauff says that, paired with her perforated stretch tank and pleated skirt in either a subdued purple or a strong orange, the entire kit shares her “love for bold colors and the beach.”
K-Swiss K-Frame Speed Rublo
Andrey Rublev
K-Swiss is embracing player-edition shoes aplenty in Melbourne. The brand revealed Andrey Rublev’s signature K-Frame Speed Rublo in a Baltic Sea (light blue), dazzling blue, and white colorway, while most of the other K-Swiss players are wearing the Hypercourt Pinnacle or Ultrashot 4 with the same colors reversed.
Nike GP Challenge 1.5
Jannik Sinner
Jannik Sinner has gone in a different color direction. His Nike GP Challenge 1.5 Premium shoes have a brown-yellow colorway, listed on the brand’s retail site as “saffron quarts/olive flak/sail/black,” and feature a custom tongue design that calls out his past championships. The new GP Challenge 1.5 Premium offers slight tweaks on the first model, mostly with a touch more room in the forefoot (by tweaking the Air Zoom design, Nike says), additional durability on the upper around the toes, and a gusset on the tongue to keep it in place.
K-Swiss Killshot 4
Frances Tiafoe
Frances Tiafoe still doesn’t have an official deal with K-Swiss, but that hasn’t stopped the brand from cranking out player-edition model after player-edition model for the American since he started pairing his Lululemon apparel with the shoes in January 2025. This year, the Ultrashot 4 “Big Foe Aus Open” features white, “wild bluebell,” and “frond” with a special “Big Foe” graphic on both the tongue and the upper.
On Roger Pro 3
Ben Shelton
Ben Shelton is sporting the as-yet-unreleased On the Roger Pro 3 in a light yellow with white, officially known as linen and lime. On athletes in the Roger Pro Fire also have the linen and lime colorway, and Iga Swiatek is embracing all things linen and lime as well.
Wilson Intrigue Tour
Marta Kostyuk
Wilson signed an entirely new crop of Tennis 360 athletes, players wearing Wilson head to toe while using the brand’s frames, but Marta Kostyuk remains the OG Wilson 360 athlete. Her Intrigue Tour for the Australian courts featured (past tense since she lost in the first round) a white base paired with deep red and bright red accenting, further showing how the Chicago-based brand is going all in on the signature brand color of red. This colorway spans the entire lineup of Wilson athletes playing in either a new Rush 5 Tour model or the Intrigue.
Nike GP Challenge 1.5 Osaka
Naomi Osaka
Really, the drama attached to Naomi Osaka’s look isn’t the shoes, but they do play a part. The jellyfish-inspired kit made waves during one of the final walk-out moments of the first round and included quite a bit of theatrics that weren’t part of the actual performance attire, but her on-court dress was still completely custom, including the GP Challenge sneakers made to match that included her “NO” logo on the tongue.
Asics is outfitting sponsored players in the fresh Melbourne Collection, highlighted by the new Solution Speed FF 4 in a white base with accents of light blue and pink. Belinda Bencic leads the Asics contingent on the court with an exclusive match jacquard dress, while Lorenzo Musetti is wearing an exclusive match jacquard short-sleeve shirt to pair with the Melbourne Collection sneaker colorways.
IMAGE COURTESY OF ASICS
Alex de Minaur may have bolted from Asics for Wilson for the Australian Open in a new Tennis 360 deal that includes shoes, but his footwear hasn’t quite caught up. The Australian is still wearing Asics shoes, just with the branding covered.
Aryna Sabalenka again went with the star treatment on her Nike footwear to match her custom dress. In a shoe that looks uncannily like what she wore at the 2025 US Open, Sabalenka’s Vapor 12 Premium has a white base with bright peach accents and silver starlike sparkles. There’s a tiger head on the tongue. It’s basically the same look she had in New York.
GETTY
K-Swiss isn’t letting off the gas when it comes to player-edition models. Ekaterina Alexandrova and Lyudmila Samsonova both get an Ultrashot 4 in white, lunar rock, and purple haze, special colorways just for them.
IMAGE COURTESY OF K-SWISS
Babolat recently launched the new Jet Mach 4, and we’ve seen Cam Norrie sporting the fresh release in both an all-red version and a white base with red accents.
Nike is embracing plenty of color in Melbourne this year, both in the apparel and on the footwear. But the star of show for AO footwear is neon yellow. Star players such as Carlos Alcaraz (Vapor 12), Amanda Anisimova (Vapor Pro 3), and Mirra Andreeva (GP Challenge 1.5) are all in bright yellow shoes, with each sporting Nike’s iconic late 80s “Aqua Gear” branding and embellishments.
IMAGES COURTESY OF NIKE
After going green last year, New Balance turns up to Melbourne embracing all things purple for players not named Coco Gauff. The popular FuelCell 996v6 and Fresh Foam X CT-Rally v2 both sport shades of purple.
Yonex athletes have a few colorways to choose from in the 2026 Melbourne Collection, even within the Eclipsion family of shoes. Athletes will be switching between a cream-based design with deep blue and a navy design with white and a blue-and-white-speckled outsole. As is typical, many of the Yonex players get their name and country flag added to the shoe’s upper.
IMAGE COURTESY OF YONEX
Mizuno has the all-new Wave Exceed Tour 7 in white and dazzling blue for the men and ice water and lightning yellow for the women. Players wearing the Wave Enforce Tour 2 have the same colorway combinations in the more robust design.
Daniil Medvedev is sporting all sorts of color and geometry on his Lacoste shirt, but that doesn’t leave much room for busyness elsewhere, as his player-edition AG-LT23 Ultra comes more subtle in his mix of white and yellow, but still with his gaming-inspired logo.
Madison Keys is still rocking pairs of the Nike Vapor X.
Adidas athletes have a range of shoes to choose from for Australia, led by the launching of the new Barricade. The orange-dominant color scheme in Melbourne from the German brand makes its way to footwear in a lucid orange, core black, pure orange combination available to players, although most athletes are still wearing an all-white version (Jessica Pegula, for example) or a white base with hints of orange, à la Alexander Zverev.
Daria Kasatkina, a Russian-turned-Australian pro, got a personal touch on her custom shoes from adidas, with her nickname and the Australian flag printed on the upper.
Leylah Fernandez was once one of the Shoe Report’s favorite athletes to watch, as the Lululemon athlete didn’t sign a shoe deal when she joined the Canadian apparel company. She’s worn everything from On to Puma basketball shoes to her dad’s unreleased brand but has seemingly settled in on K-Swiss, having been consistent with them since summer 2025 and now wearing a Hypercourt.
Follow Tim Newcomb’s tennis gear coverage on Instagram at Felt Alley Tennis.