Wimbledon competitors will be allowed to wear dark colored undershorts from next year.
The All England Club have relaxed their all-white dress rule to ease a “potential source of anxiety” for players during their period.
Women and girls can now wear medium or dark colored undershorts, as long as they are no longer than their skirt.
Discussions have taken place with the WTA, apparel manufacturers and medical teams after the players raised their concerns.
Former Olympic champion Monica Puig has previously spoken of the “mental stress” of having to wear white.
The Puerto Rican, who won her Olympic title in 2016, also said she used to pray that the championships didn’t coincide with her rules.
Britain’s Heather Watson, who was one of the first to speak out about the impact periods can have on performance, said the issue was frequently discussed privately.
“It’s absolutely something players talk about around Wimbledon because of the all-whites,” Watson told BBC Sport in June.
“I think people talk about it a lot – maybe not to the media but to each other, of course.”
Sally Bolton, chief executive of the All England Club, said: “We are committed to supporting the players and listening to their feedback on how they can perform at their best.
“We hope this rule adjustment will help players focus solely on their performance by alleviating a potential source of anxiety.”
The move comes later City of Stoke, West Bromwich Albion, Swansea and Manchester City have all introduced dark colored shorts for their women’s teams, while Bristol City wear red shorts with their home kit for the first time when they face Birmingham at Ashton Gate on Saturday.
Test cricketers have also spoken of the anxiety of bleeding into their whites while playing.
The All England Club also announced that the 2022 Championships recorded a surplus of £47.141 million, the second highest on record. Ninety per cent of this surplus (£42.427 million) will be distributed to the LTA to invest in British tennis.
Public voting for next year’s Championships has just ended and the club claim to have received a record number of entries. He reports “renewed interest from abroad” – and in particular from the United States, Ireland, Italy and Germany.
This will come as a relief, as although this year’s tournament was the busiest in Wimbledon history (due to the introduction of play on the middle Sunday), the All England Club said the number of people joining the queue had diminished. One of the theories put forward at the time was the difficulty of traveling from abroad during a pandemic.
Meanwhile, former UK number one Laura Robson and Jamie Delgado, who played at Wimbledon for a record 23 consecutive years, will join the club in December, focusing on international player relations.
They will be on a mission to travel to tournaments overseas to “foster collaboration and engagement with the tennis community”.
Their diplomatic skills will be badly needed as the club attempts to mend relations damaged by the decision to exclude Russian and Belarus players from this year’s championships.
