Sergio Tacchini is a former Italian tennis player and famous Italian fashion designer of sportswear. In 1966 he set up a company, named after him, to produce and distribute sports apparel and footwear. He started with tennis clothing and in the seventies became famous when Jimmy Connors wore his coloured collection in Wimbledon. Besides Connors several other tennis champions wore Sergio Tacchini's clothes: John McEnroe, Mats Wilander, Pat Cash, Pete Sampras, Gabriela Sabatini and many more.

In the late 90s Sergio Tacchini got itself into a nasty affair with former tennis star Martina Hingis. She claimed that their trainers had caused her injuries and were unsuitable for tournament play. She even filed a lawsuit and although it remained only at that, some damage had been done. It also marked the beginning of the relatively unsuccessful period for Sergio Tacchini. The brand was losing its market share and the company was bought by Hong Kong businessman Billy Ngok in 2008 for US $42.3m. Billy Ngok, the chairman of Hong Kong apparel brand and supply-chain services company Hembly International, has made the acquisition as a private investment.

Patrick Rafter congratulates Goran Ivanisević, who's wearing Sergio Tacchini, after his win in 2001's final in Wimbledon


In 2001 Sergio Tacchini was involved in one of the best tennis matches ever played in Grand Slam tournaments. Goran Ivanišević, who was wearing Sergio Tacchini's clothes, defeated Patrick Rafter in an epic battle that became one of the best matches in the history of Wimbledon tournament. It was Ivanišević's fourth Wimbledon final and with the win he became the first player with a special invitation (aka wildcard), the first Croatian and the lowest ranked player in history to claim the Wimbledon title.

Novak Djoković, wearing Sergio Tacchini, holds the championship trophy after winning Wimbledon tournament (Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)


Ten years later another Sergio Tachhini sponsored tennis player from the former Yugoslavia won Wimbledon tournament. This year Novak Djoković of Serbia defeated Rafael Nadal and thus won his third Grand Slam tournament.

In November of 2009 Novak signed a 10-year sponsorship deal with Sergio Tacchini, starting from January 1, 2010. It turned out to be a fantastic deal for the company. In 2011 Djokovic first won Australian Open in Melbourne and went on a 41-match winning streak, just short of John McEnroe’s record of 42 straight wins. He lost to Roger Federer in the semi final of the French Open, but bounced back and went all the way in All-England Club in Wimbledon.


In the 80s and 90s Sergio Tacchini was one of the most popular casual sports brand, with young men who wanted to make a name for themselves with regards to fashion and style had to consider wearing some Sergio’s colourful styles. In the 80s the brand was also worn by football hooligans in England.

Although Sergio Tacchini is a relatively well known tennis brand, its presence in movies or music videos was relatively scarce. It was included in the 2005 British drama/crime/gangster movie The Business together with another famous brand from the 80s: Fila.

Sergio Tacchini in Hanna (2011, Focus Features, screen capture)


A few days ago I noticed the brand in the 2011 action thriller Hanna, a movie about a 16-year-old girl who was raised by her father to become the perfect assassin.

The brand was worn by Isaacs – played by the outstanding Tom Hollander – described in the movie blog Filmerolla as the movie world’s only Sergio Tacchini tracksuit wearing psychopath. Isaacs was involved in several scenes and was always wearing different tracksuits, but constantly Sergio Tacchini.

Even though it’s highly unlikely that Sergio Tacchini’s involvement in Hanna was paid product placement, it’s kind of positively funny to see a brand associated with a psychopath. You don’t want to see your brand worn by some ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ psychopath, but Isaacs in Hanna was a different kind of psychopath: James Berardinelli described him as a character, whose gleeful sadism is at times darkly comedic.

Sergio Tacchini in Hanna (2011, Focus Features, screen capture)


Sergio Tacchini was a brand that used to have an important role in the sports world, especially in tennis. Personally I had never really thought of it as a cool brand, but this year I changed my opinion. The undisputed no. 1 in tennis world is wearing Sergio Tacchini, this year's most interesting movie psychopath was wearing Sergio Tacchini and in July we celebrated the 10th anniversary of one of the most memorable tennis matches in history – a match in which one very likable tennis player won in Wimbledon in an unbelievable way while wearing Sergio Tacchini.

Sergio Tacchini is one cool brand!


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3 Comments
  1. These are our heroes guys. We are so proud of them. They are proud of our country as well……. and do all their best to promote it.

    And we need it as we have a dark side as well.

    Thank you very much Sergio Tacchini for believing and sponsoring our players to show only our good sport side that will last no matter what.