Headband Guys Take Cap Boys

Just a quick thought, before attempting to post something on the Fed-Nadal Wimbly final.

What we have seen categorically over the past years is that you want to be wearing anything other than a baseball-style cap if you hope to be dominant in men's professional tennis.

Headband Guys: Federer, Nadal. And before that, Borg, McEnroe (Mac still goes for the Springsteen bandana, these days). Sampras, no headband, no cap. But pointedly, no cap. Lendl: Not really a cap, but that French Foreign Legion thing during the later years. Blake: headband, and on the ascent. Bjorkman: Headband, and you see where it got him this year.

Ivan L.: No cap, no headband. Glorious bald pate.

Cap Boys: Roddick, Hewitt. Before them... well, nobody really wore caps much.

And that's because caps look silly. Yes, yes, they keep the sun off the face. But they're still caps. They're for little boys. They're not for men.

Federer and Nadal wear THE SAME HEADBAND. Coincidence? I think not. Chances are pretty good that we're going to see an all-headband series of Grand Slam finals this year, as Nadal has to be the odds-on fave for the US Open final, along with Fed, and of course headband-wearing Marcos Baghdatis was the Oz Open finalist.

Simply put, the headband is dashing. The cap is juvenile.

The headband is sexy, Euro.

The cap is scruffy, Americano.

So there you have it: If you want to be a player in the '00s, you gotta lose the cap.

When I play, and I wear a cap, I feel like a twink. When I play and I wear a headband, I feel like a badass, and I'm 39.

Anything is better than a cap. ANYTHING. Floppy terry-cloth tennis bucket hat--better.

Well, anything except a visor, which is a castrated cap.