When Aryna Sabalenka won the U.S. Open last year, she did so in bespoke Material Good jewelry, wearing diamond drop earrings featuring eight stones, nodding to her eighth time competing in the tournament.
“I cried when she won,” says Atara Lev, Material Good’s Head of Design. “I mean, obviously I was so happy that she won, and it was a very intense game. But it’s such a visceral thing: Here is this world-class athlete who decided, ‘I like Material Good enough that I want to wear them on this world stage while I play in the ultimate tennis competition.’ Then all of a sudden she was raising the trophy and the earrings were there.”
Elsa//Getty Images
Sabalenka kisses the winner’s trophy.
At every Grand Slam since that U.S. Open win—this year’s Australian Open, Roland Garros, and Wimbledon—Sabalenka has worn a custom Material Good suite. “We really work in tandem with her to create something very specific for her playing on the court and her vibe and style,” says Teresa Panico, the jewelry house’s Director of Marketing. “She’s very adventurous with her jewelry, with her style in general, but she’s not scared of color and big pieces so we can get really fun and playful with it.”
She adds, “We love bespoke. We create pieces around—we listen to our clients, we take everything into consideration and give it our spin and our edge. We love to create things for people. So we really wanted to make that part of the process with her. It’s been so great because she’s loved everything. It’s been an honor. It really has. It’s been a dream come true for us and for the brand.”
Here, Lev and Panico reveal new insights into their partnership with Sabalenka and discuss her 2026 U.S. Open jewelry:
What does it mean to enter the sports jewelry world—especially as the brand designing for the top-ranked women’s tennis player?
Teresa Panico: We’ve always loved tennis, the whole team, and we’ve always actually wanted to get into that world and we just never knew how to. We’ve talked about it internally in our marketing team for a long time: How can we do something at the U.S. Open? Who can we style? Honestly, when it happened so organically, it was fate. We ran with it. When [Sabalenka] came into the Material Good boutique for the first time, that wasn’t the intention. She came in for something completely different and we just hit it off with her.
When she left, we were all so excited because she’s very much the Material Good girl. She loves jewelry. She’s adventurous. She’s very passionate about luxury. So that was really exciting for us. It was like, oh my god, we’re getting on this world stage of athleticism, which is so cool, but she’s also so on brand for us in the sense that she is [Material Good] in her day-to-day life—and she lives it on the court too.
You’ve designed bespoke suites for every Grand Slam this year. How much do you consider her kits when you’re designing the jewelry?
Atara Lev: We were given access to her entire year’s worth [of Nike kits] ahead of time. We had to consider everything about every single kit. Most notably: All of the necklines. Aryna loves necklaces. She specifically requested a bunch of really insane necklaces. This year’s kits all had quite high necklines. In the case of Australian Open, it was a very rigid zip neckline.
Darrian Traynor//Getty Images
Sabalenka’s kit at the Australian Open featured a high zip.
So there was a lot of deliberation about how to make pieces that would still stand out against these very high necklines. Or again, with Australian Open and also Wimbledon, these sort of V-shapes—so to get something that would sit properly, especially as she was jumping around, and not keep landing funny on a collar or not get lost, basically. That was an interesting thing to work around.
Sarah Stier//Getty Images
PAUL CROCK//Getty Images
Dan Istitene//Getty Images
BSR Agency//Getty Images
In terms of earrings and having these high necklines—and she loves a big earring, she loves a drop dangly earring—so it would be too much if she had a necklace and a collar and an earring. So there was that as well.
Specifically thinking about her U.S. Open kit, what were you considering with this suite?
Material Good
Sabalenka’s U.S. Open suite.
AL: It’s our boldest yet. It had the highest neckline yet, so I really wanted something that would stand out. It also is the U.S. Open—Material Good’s flagship is in New York, so the U.S. Open for us is our home game. We wanted something that would just be so wow. Especially it’s at the end of all of these tournaments. We really wanted to cap the year off and really have a bang moment.
Her [kit] is quite basketball inspired. New York is very known for outdoor courts and hoops, especially the old school in the ‘80s, everybody playing outside. At Material Good, we have delved recently into estate pieces, so I knew I wanted to combine something from that. I’d been surrounded by all of these retro estate pieces, so I was pulling a lot of inspiration from there. I wanted something big. I wanted something bold. I wanted to match the energy, especially the energy of the kit. It has a lot going on. It’s really fun. It’s really playful. I wanted to match the energy of the city and take the city into consideration. So all these things combined landed into this suite.
TIMOTHY A. CLARY//Getty Images
Sabalenka first wore the jewels while playing mixed doubles with Novak Djokovic.
What was the inspiration for the multicolor U.S. Open 2026 suite?
AL: I’m a New Yorker; I was born in Queens. I really wanted to showcase the heart of the city, and what does everyone associate with New York? It’s a melting pot. Lots of different people from lots of different places all over the world. The stones are reflective of that. It’s multiple different shapes, multiple different colors, and they’re sourced from all different locations in the world. So you have Nigeria and Tanzania and Cambodia and Burma and Mozambique and all these different places where these stones come from, and they’re all united in this one piece.
Material Good
The necklace features sapphires, tourmaline, garnet, zircon, spinel, chrysoberyl, and tanzanite, a total of 83.20 carats. “It’s very colorful. It’s very juicy. There were materials used that I’ve never even thought of touching before,” says Lev.
In terms of construction, like all of the other suites, it needed to be something she could play in, even though it’s big. It can’t be too heavy. It can’t be flipping up and hitting her in the face. It needs to not trap in sweat because she’s sweating. But we still want it to be true to Material Good and the way Material Good constructs things, and it’s not going to feel flimsy. It’s not going to feel like air. So it has a really nice heavyweight feel to it. There is negative space in between all the little gold bars of the settings.
Material Good
The bracelet features sapphires, tourmaline, garnet, zircon, spinel, chrysoberyl, tanzanite, and tsavorite, a a total of 28.36 carats.
Material Good
The earrings—studs with a drop jacket—use sapphires, spinel, tourmaline, and garnet. They can be worn as detachable studs or as full-length earrings.
The bracelet, we don’t want anything that’s too distracting or feels too heavy for her or is flopping around. So this entire year [with bracelets], we’ve been like, ‘What length, what length, what length?’ We take the length into consideration so that it’s not sliding up and down [Sabalenka’s arm]. Again, keeping it as lightweight as possible while still maintaining that nice feeling. And the earrings as well, to keep them lightweight. She loves a dangle earring, but she’s moving, so we can’t have anything that’s smacking her in the face or is pulling on her.
Was there anything you learned from her wearing Material Good at the French Open, Wimbledon, or Australia that you’ve incorporated into this suite?
TP: The necklace length! She’s worn a lot of things layered; she likes to layer stuff. We do this stuff [in New York] and she’s in Europe most of the time, so we can’t fit her for anything. So the amount of conversations and testing and then switching chains, because when it gets to her, she’s going on the court with it. So the amount of times that we’ve been in a panic mode just being like, ‘Oh my gosh, this isn’t right.’ Which is why we’ve given her the optionality in case, worst-case scenario, she has this option or this option and either will be okay.
DAVID GRAY//Getty Images
Sabalenka showing off her earrings at the Australian Open.
AL: The first time she wears [the jewelry] on court is not a major game. She wears it to practice and sees how she feels in it. So we specifically made stud earrings with drop jackets so that if she ended up not liking the drop, she could take off the drop and just wear the stud.
TP: When she put them on, we were like, ‘No, you don’t have to wear those if you don’t want.’ Immediately, she was like, ‘No, I’m definitely wearing these to play.’ We’re like, ‘Oh, okay!’ A strong reaction. So right then and there we’re like, ‘Okay, she’s not scared, so great.’
BSR Agency//Getty Images
Her anklet at Wimbledon.
AL: I kept pushing it and pushing it. The anklet for Wimbledon was also so good. I was like, ‘So how would you feel about maybe potentially….’ because she’s running and she’s jumping, and she was like, ‘Oh my God, yeah, I would love that.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, great. You get an anklet.’
When you think about fine jewelry, you don’t necessarily jump to how it will work on an athlete or in a professional tennis setting. What have you learned from Aryna about what fine jewelry can be?
Robert Prange//Getty Images
Sabalenka in Material Good earlier this month.
AL: Jewelry isn’t a serious thing. It’s fun and it’s emotional and it’s something that people get at one of their biggest moments in life. It’s something that people use to treat themselves. It’s something that people use to treat other people. It’s not serious. This is not the queen’s jewels. We are very, very big into that: No matter the piece, if you’re buying it, you should wear it and you should wear it wherever. You should wear it on a tennis court and you should wear it to the grocery store. It’s not meant to sit in a safe. Jewelry that sits in a safe is the saddest thing. We’re very, very much about that.
“Jewelry that sits in a safe is the saddest thing.”
This is the ultimate testament to that: Yes, you can wear our jewelry as a professional athlete on a world stage, sweating and jumping and running, and it doesn’t look necessarily out of place. It’s meant to be part of it. And then you can wear it off the court to dinner and press and to the club. And that’s at the core of how we want our jewelry to be worn.
When you’re watching Aryna walk onto court in Arthur Ashe Stadium wearing the suite, what are you watching for?
AL: I like watching it move around and bounce around because that’s what it was meant to do. Otherwise, just looking for her to win.
TP: I’m the worrywart of the team.
AL: How many times has Teresa texted me and been like, ‘Are you sure it’s going to be okay?’
TP: Are you sure it’ll hold up? Are the connections tight enough? Did we double-check everything? Connections are very secure, but you never know. It’s handmade, it’s metal. We try and do everything we can, but sometimes it’s—
AL: You know what? That’s how the tennis bracelet got famous.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Deputy Digital Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, celebrities, the royals, and a wide range of other topics. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.