Ahead of the US Open in August, Ukranian tennis star Marta Kostyuk sits in a suite in the luxurious William Vale Hotel in Brooklyn, N.Y. To her right is footwear design legend Tate Kuerbis, and industry veteran Shivam Bhan is on her left.
Though she is set to compete in just a few days, Kostyuk — one of Wilson’s head-to-toe athletes — is focused on the array of reference photos, sketches and footwear components that surround her. These materials led to the creation of Wilson Intrigue, the shoe she will soon debut on court, of which FN has an exclusive look.
Both Kuerbis and Bhan are former Nike employees who departed for Wilson in 2023. For their first major project, they were tasked with creating a tennis shoe for women, and more specifically, Kostyuk.
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To start, Bhan — who joined in July 2023 as senior director of product and merchandising — said he studied analytics of tennis to see if there was a difference in what women’s and men’s players needed. Here, Bhan discovered that women’s tennis is more demanding from a physiological perspective than the men’s game.
“In men’s tennis, serves are so big, they’re so fast, it’s a given that when you’re serving, you’re going to win. But breaking serve is really important in women’s tennis,” Bhan said. “There are more shots per set in women’s tennis than in men’s. And at Grand Slams, women only have three sets to win their match, and men get five. When you play the stats, it’s more high stakes in women’s tennis, and they have to do more work per point.”
This study also included talking with players on the tour and asking what the most important aspect of a shoe was. Bhan noted that both women and men said support was the most important. “We asked the men what support means, and they would say stiffness. The women would say cushioning,” he explained.
Despite the vastly different needs, most tennis footwear on the market is made with men in mind, including signature shoes from leading brands for the likes of Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.
With Kostyuk — who is currently ranked No. 17 in the world — on Wilson’s roster, Bhan then began to explore her game. In conversation, he stated Kostyuk shared she was most proud about how balanced her game was, which includes the ability to attack angles as her “superpower.” With recent changes to her training, Kostyuk stated she is “getting lighter,” “playing faster” and is “more relentless.”
When asked about what she wants from a shoe, according to Bhan, Kostyuk said she wanted something that runs like a Nike Pegasus but drives like an F1 race car.
Trust the Process
After nearly 29 years at Nike, Kuerbis — whose work at the Swoosh includes the Vapor tennis shoe franchise — joined his former colleague Bhan at Wilson in September 2023. He immediately began working on the Intrigue.
Their work, however, was daunting. The team at Wilson had to complete the Intrigue for Kostyuk in one year, when most footwear takes two years to come to fruition.
“We weren’t following a footwear calendar. We were following Kostyuk’s calendar, the tennis calendar,” Bhan said. “When she was available, we were designing, we were revising.”
To get this project across the finish line, Bhan and Kuerbis traveled with samples in hand to Kostyuk’s adopted home of Monaco, where she would practice in the shoes and provide feedback.
“Listening to Marta when she was playing in the shoe, her feedback instantly went back into the design,” said Kuerbis, the senior design director of footwear at Wilson. “We took a couple trips to the factory to work. It was really all hands on deck to push this as fast as possible.”
The realtime feedback from Kostyuk paid off.
“The first sample I saw and tried was in last October, which was super raw. The first sample was way too [much of] running shoe,” Kostyuk said. “There were things we had to add and work on because there are some specifications in tennis that have to be followed to make this shoe last. I don’t destroy shoes as much as other players, so I had some specific demands that were important for me.”
She continued, “This one I tried six weeks ago in July. There was a significant difference. At the end of the day, my needs were met. This one is super good.”
In terms of tech, the Wilson Intrigue features the brand’s lightweight and breathable Ultra Shield engineered mesh, as well as its FootFrame dynamic support fit system for personalized comfort and its newest SwiftStep drop-in sockliner that brings its responsive foam closer to the foot.
In terms of aesthetics, Kuerbis said the team sought to create something timeless, simple and modern, something that would “create a new image for Wilson footwear.”
“I like the way you can play with this shoe. You can make it super simple, or you can add all sorts of different colors underneath the mesh,” Kostyuk said. “You can make it interesting, but this shoe is not too much. This one has a bright color, but it doesn’t hurt your eye when you look at it. This was important because I also like to look very good on court.”
What’s more, in a marketplace dominated by men’s shoes, this one is only for women and was built off a women’s last based on thousands of foot scans.
“There are three places where women’s feet are most different. Women have, on average, more narrow breadth of a heel, they have a higher arch compared to men and they have more variable toe shapes. We built that into the last,” Bhan explained.
The shoe’s name, too, is special. Intrigue is a nod to a women’s-only tennis shoe from Wilson in the 1990s.
“We try to push ourselves to the limit the same as men, so why not help us? This is definitely very special, and these adjustments will definitely help,” Kostyuk said. “It’s amazing and obviously will increase healthy feet in the world.”
Although not yet on the market, the shoe should look familiar to devoted tennis fans. Kostyuk debuted the Wilson Intrigue at the US Open in August and has worn the shoe on court several times since. Other Wilson athletes have worn the shoe as well.
“I spoke to another Wilson athlete in Cincinnati [at the Cincinnati Open] who was wearing the shoes. I asked her what she thinks about them and she said she loves them,” Kostyuk shared. “These shoes had to be good, comfortable and durable, and that is what these guys achieved.”
She continued, “I don’t just want this shoe to be good for me. I also want this to be good for other players and people who are going to wear it, who are going to test it, who are going to use it.”
The Wilson Intrigue arrives in February 2025.
About the Author
Peter Verry is the Senior News and Features Editor for Athletic and Outdoor at Footwear News. He oversees coverage of the two fast-paced and ultracompetitive markets, which includes conducting in-depth interviews with industry leaders and writing stories on sneakers and outdoor shoes. He is a lifelong sneaker addict (and shares his newest purchases via @peterverry on Instagram) and spends most of his free time on a trail. He holds an M.A. in journalism from Hofstra University and can be reached at peter.verry@footwearnews.com.
