.” I merely won and also I prefer whacks,” Croatian ping pong star Donna Vekiu0107 proclaims Friday mid-day of the United States Open. She’s just defeated Peyton Stearns– and also after flexing and bathing– her following stop pre-press association is actually the petit Julien Farel pop-up hair salon hidden inside Queens’s Arthur Ashe Arena. “I had been actually standing by all time to find Julian and also get thumps encouraged through Margot Robbie.” More than twenty years back, hairdresser Julien Farel moved toward the United States Tennis Affiliation along with a suggestion: a hair salon where ping pong gamers can come over for a haircut, design, or another form of self-care throughout the United States Open, some of the most high-intensity competitions of their year.
“It took them five years to okay me,” Farel, now 16 years into the beauty salon partnership at the Open, informs me along with a smile. “I was actually very relentless since I knew this would certainly be a perk for lots of sportsmens. As well as I was right.
Now, they await this instant to come in and obtain a haircut.” A number of the sport’s biggest names have rested inside this salon, which is simply available during the two weeks of the competition: “I reduced Rafael Nadal’s hair from lengthy to quick in 2010, that occurred on this site and also it was a major bargain. Everyone from Billie Jean King to [Martina] Navratilova has actually beinged in these chairs. Our team possessed Coco listed here straight after she won in 2015’s tournament, too.” Vekiu0107 as well as her new bangs, fresh reduced through Julien Farel.Photographed by Caroline Tompkins.