The Unsung Hero Of Tennis Sneakers
Nike Challenge Court.
Although I attempted to define a perfect sneaker once, I am not a big fan of sneakers in general. But I love digging for stories behind things, be it sneakers, brands, or architecture. You only scratch the surface and it’s a rabbit hole down there.
This time, it all began with this photo I took for my Streets Report from Belgrade, Serbia:
There is nothing particularly special about this fit. Yet, it’s a quintessential dadcore style: a North Face Sierra-like puffer jacket, grey sweatpants with elasticated cuffs, and 90s-looking sneakers. Remember Leo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street on the night he drove his Countach on lemmons? It’s a classic vibe that just works.
Upon closer inspection, the sneakers were also ace: mid-height, with a properly aged, yellowish sole, but without many creases on the leather. But I hadn’t seen these Nikes before.
It turned out, the model is Challenge Court and was originally introduced in 1983. The famous American tennis player John McEnroe used to fly in the sneakers:
McEnroe has been with Nike since 1978 which probably makes him the brand’s longest athlete of all time. The company even named one of the buildings in its headquarters in Beaverton after McEnroe.
McEnroe is famous for coining the “You cannot be serious“:
Even though the Challenge Court has made waves outside sports, with appearances in movies such as The Breakfast Club and The Man with One Red Shoe, the sneakers haven’t been reissued too much since the original release. Maybe because they were outshined by even more popular tennis sneakers that were released a year later and became synonymous with McEnroe — Nike Mac Attack.
The Challenge Court was reissued a few times in 2012–2015 but the new colorways didn’t cut it. The almost OG colorway was released only two times — in collaboration with Swiss sneaker specialists Titolo in 2014 and American retailer J.Crew in 2015. Somehow, one of the pairs ended up in Belgrade, Serbia.
Curiously, the only other decent colorway of the Challenge Court was released within the Nike SB line in collaboration with Gino Iannucci. The ad for the release featured both the skater and John McEnroe himself:
If the last seconds of the clip feel familiar, it’s not a coincidence. The scene made it to the campaign poster, referencing the original McEnroe ad. Which was of course a reference to the famous shot of James Dean:
In 1990, Nike launched the now-legendary tennis line of clothing and sneakers named after the Challenge Court. The collection forever changed how players looked on the court with McEnroe, Borg, and Agassi playing the major roles. But that’s a whole other story.