Anna Kalinskaya claims she has had a weird experience with Adidas and stopped working with the renowned sportswear brand because of "principles."
Kalinskaya, who is 27 years old, signed a deal with Adidas and wore Adidas-manufactured clothes for several years before officially stopping in early 2024.
Appearing on Elena Vesnina's tennis podcast, Kalinskaya explained that she was no longer under a contract with Adidas at the start of the 2024 season, but still wanted to wear the brand's clothes and had no problem doing so even without a deal. Then, in January 2024, the Russian made a Grand Slam breakthrough after reaching her maiden Slam quarterfinal at the Australian Open.
Apparently, before her Australian Open quarterfinal match, Kalinskaya was approached by an Adidas official and she was asked for tickets for her match against Zheng Qinwen. The 27-year-old thought that the Adidas official did so because they wanted to offer her a new contract. But that wasn't the case.
Kalinskaya: They didn't get in touch afterward and I stopped wearing Adidas… It was a matter of principles
“Contracts are every three years, right? I’ve thought about it – not that I want a contract, I just want to continue working with this brand. When it didn’t happen in 2024, I went on court without a contract, but wore Adidas. Then the head of the tennis division came up and asked for tickets to the quarterfinal. I thought we’d be re-signing right then. That didn’t happen, which surprised me, but it didn’t really bother me much," the world No. 28 told Vesnina, via Russian publication Championat.
"I have friends who get stressed, who don’t even want to go to a store to buy gear. It even affects how they play on court. I don’t understand that – I’ll just go to the store and buy my kit.
"When I was told after Australia that they hadn’t offered me a new contract, I said, ‘Alright, what can you do? I don’t want to wear Adidas.’ Yes, it was a matter of principle. Especially after the person asked me to come to the box for the quarterfinal – before that, they didn’t care how I was playing. And after that, they didn’t get in touch, said nothing after the match. I was probably disappointed in the company."
In the end, everything still worked out perfectly fine for Kalinskaya, who signed a deal with Nike in early 2024 and has been representing the brand since.
Kalinskaya has yet to win a WTA title, but has a WTA 1000 final on her resume after finishing as runner-up in Dubai two years ago. Also, the Russian came close to breaking into the top-10 in late 2024 when she rose to No. 11 in the world.
At this week's WTA 1000 tournament in Doha, Kalinskaya reached the quarterfinal before losing to Karolina Muchova.
