It is customary to say “hats off!” to congratulate someone on a job well done, a job like winning a Wimbledon singles title.

Or “chapeau!” as they say across the Channel.

It has been nearly two centuries since society stopped actually doffing a physical item of headgear to show respect and started using the phrase in the figurative sense, but in tennis – a sport that does love its history – headgear remains an item of kit that is symbolic of each champion on whose head it sits.

The first that might spring to mind is Pat Cash’s black-and-white check headband, which the Australian former world No.4 later revealed was inspired by the check-patterned guitars of Cheap Trick’s lead guitarist Rick Neilsen.

In 1987, Cash beat world No.1 Ivan Lendl in straight sets and sealed his rock’n’roll image, not only by rocking the racy headband but by clambering up over the Centre Court architecture like a cat burglar to celebrate with family and friends in the players’ box.

Centre Court eventually acquired an official Champion’s Gate in 2014 to allow safe access to the players' box but the image of Cash, the original climber, is forever associated with that black-and-white check headband.

These days baseball caps (worn backwards, worn forwards) are predominant, not least because they protect players’ faces from the glare of the sun. The crownless version – a visor – is also popular because it allows for airflow to cool the head and accommodates hair tidied away in a bun or long plait.

Surprisingly, champions through the ages have worn hats as varied as their style of play. In the Wimbledon headgear hall of fame, we have a tweed cap, a cloche hat, a French beret, a white jockey cap and straw hat as well as bandeaux, headbands (broad, thin, coloured, Paisley and bordered), Alice bands (thin, broad and ribbon), caps, eye shades, even a tiara.

It was in a peaked tweed cap that the Australian Norman Brookes became the first non-British player and the first lefty to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon after a straight sets victory over Arthur Gore in 1907.

He repeated the feat in 1914 and was caricatured in Tatler magazine wearing his trademark flat cap. Said to be the best player of the first decade of the 20th century and always immaculately dressed, Brookes’ legacy lives on in both in his tweed cap and in the Australian Open men’s trophy that is named after him.

Suzanne Lenglen (main picture) is immortalised in images of her wearing her signature wide tulle bandeau in the 1920s, but in 1919 she donned a circular-brimmed bonnet, technically a cloche hat, and abandoned her corset to appear on Centre Court in a thoroughly modern, short-sleeved dress with calf-length pleated skirt. Her victory over Lambert Chambers was the first of her six Wimbledon titles and the start of her reign as a paradigm of style.

In 1924 and 1926, Gallic flair took to Centre Court in the form of Jean Borotra’s traditional black-wool French beret. One of the so-called 'Four Musketeers' who dominated tennis in the 1920s and early 1930s, Borotra was known as the “Bounding Basque”, and wore his distinctive headwear throughout both his runs to victory on the grass of SW19. 

Alice Marble had already won the US Open twice when she was crowned ladies’ singles champion at Wimbledon in 1939. In her tailored flannel shorts and crew-neck T-shirts, with her blonde hair flowing from her white jockey cap, she brought a sun-loving Californian style to Centre Court.

Is there a more iconic image in tennis than Bjorn Borg in his tight cream-coloured Fila shirt with his long, blond hair held back in that distinctive, red, white and blue striped headband?

Never mind the five titles in a row claimed from 1976 through to 1980, the Swede ushered in the era of The Headband as a must-wear accessory. John McEnroe held the Wimbledon trophy aloft in a red headband. The Argentine Guillermo Vilas, a clay-court specialist who never reached a Wimbledon final, was also a notable fan.

Andre Agassi collected eight Grand Slam titles in his remarkable career and, to cap it all, he did so with memorable sartorial style. Away from the strict “predominantly white” dress code of Wimbledon, he favoured neon colours, garish patterns, flamboyant hairstyles and jewellery. But it was in a pristine white baseball cap that he won on the grass at the All England Club in 1992. Since then, the baseball cap has never really gone out of fashion.

What of the 'titfers' favoured by the three potential GOATs in the men’s game? Federer and Nadal have both remained loyal to the hand-tied bandana, while Djokovic’s hairstyle allows him to go without headgear of any sort.

In a section of The Wimbledon Compendium headed “Equipment Records”, the definitive list of Champions Who Wore Headgear in a Singles Final reveals that Steffi Graf far outstrips Martina Navratilova in the variety of her choice of hair accessory. 

To Navratilova’s one entry for a thin purple ribbon headband, worn when she won her ninth title in 1990, Graf has four: two for thin printed headbands (1991, 1993) and two for thin Paisley headbands (1995, 1996).

Chris Evert never wore a hat, preferring to tie her back in a ponytail with a ribbon or pinning it off her face with a bobby pin.

As you would imagine, the Willams sisters take the crown for eye-catching headgear. In the milestone siblings' final of 2002, Serena claimed sovereignty over her older sister Venus wearing a tiara.

Not to be outdone, Venus then introduced her now iconic Eye Shade and made it a hat-trick with that look when she won her titles here in 2005, 2007 and 2008.

Chapeau, indeed.

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