THERE were high-pitched grunts and moans during this year’s Wimbledon three-set semifinal match between Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic and Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, but the hair remained under control. Both players, in white headbands and long dramatic braids, seemed to have torn a page out of the bohemian-chic playbook.

As if piped in directly to the Fall 2011 collections, more and more female professional tennis players are playing with long plaits. Jenna Goldate, a spokeswoman for the recently opened Braid Bar at the John Barrett Salon on Fifth Avenue, pointed out that braids were spotted last spring at the runway shows of Alexander McQueen, Pucci and Mara Hoffman, and celebrities like Blake Lively and Rachel Zoe have continued to wear braids this summer. “The fashion of tennis has been elevated,” she said, “so the hair plays into that as well.”

The style is also practical. “I like to have long hair off court,” the Russian player Maria Kirilenko, ranked No. 29 on the W.T.A. tour, wrote in an e-mail, and braiding her hair is “less disturbing while playing.” Not content with Heidi-like plaits, Ms. Kirilenko likes to include a personal touch. “I do a multiple braid out of three braids. I divide my hair in three and make three small braids and then use them to make one,” she said.