Style of IKIJI Part6

Smile on the chest of the Polo Shirt

A representative of modern tennis wear used to be a polo shirt, and in the beginning there was a tennis shirt, but at the beginning of the twentieth century it is generally more popular with polo players than tennis players, and The shirts worn by polo players were stylish jerseys while tennis players were wearing a woven shirt, and tennis players have begun to wear polo shirts catching onto the popularity of polo players.

Modern polo shirts are not only tennis players, but have become essential daily wear for general old and young men and women. Especially in polo shirts with a character mark on the chest, in tennis wear, crocodile marks and laurel marks are generally famous, but this is a brand of famous tennis players. But will Japanese tennis players have such a world-class mark?  Kei Nishikori? Naomi Osaka? Who else is there? It was there!

The first time tennis was introduced to Japan in 1878 (Meiji 11^th), and the first Japanese player to participate in the Wimbledon tournament, in 1920 (Taisho 9^th), Zenzo Shimizu who works for trading company, went to London for a long vacation and went up to the superb semifinals from participating in qualifying, he has been defeated unfortunately against the world’s top player, Bill Tilden. However, Shimizu and Tilden fought again in the next year’s Davis Cup, and Shimizu was leading up to 2nd set, but after that, 3 sets consecutively in a row, were taken and lost. At that time, Shimizu went up to the world ranking 4th.

In fact, a legend called “soft ball” was born in this game. In the middle of the play, Tilden falls in the court, and at that time Shimizu returns a slow ball near Tilden instead of  smashing, and Tilden quickly stands up and returned back to get a point. The audience was applauded at the standing ovation as a true fair player for this Shimizu play. He was always politely called “Smiley Shimmy” because of his smile and was praised as a fair-play player. On IKIJI polo shirts, there is the IKIJI mark, bearing of the world-class smile of Japan.