The explosion of new styles on the AVP Tour

Sarah Pavan was terrified.

There she stood, in the bowels of the Footprint Center, moments away from preparing to compete in the AVP Phoenix Gold Series Championships. She’d be playing with a new partner in Zana Muno, in a new format, in an arena the size of which she had never before played.

And she was going to do so in a tennis skirt.

A tennis skirt?

Sarah Pavan?

The 6-foot-5 Canadian who had thrice been named the best blocker in the world? The 36-year-old known for dominance at the net, icy staredowns and a mostly stoic demeanor?

In a tennis skirt?

“I think it’s fair to say that I’m the last person people ever thought would do that. I’m the last person who thought I’d do that,” Pavan said with a laugh. “If I’m being completely honest, the whole reason I even entertained the thought of it was because I saw how happy it made Zana. I saw how excited she was at the prospect and I couldn’t say no to that, you know what I mean? She was so excited, and at the very least, I wanted to make her happy.”

So she indulged Muno, her 26-year-old partner with such a zeal for outfits that, even when attending to her chickens on her ranch in Santa Maria, with no other souls within a 10-minute drive, nobody watching on any livestream, no content producers there to shoot photos or take video, Muno “goes for the chic farmer,” she said of her outfits. “That’s the goal. Dirty but also chic. Functional, because we have to shovel poop, but look good doing it! That’s the goal.”

When the two hit the Lululemon outlet in Phoenix, Pavan didn’t expect to actually buy anything. She’d simply try on a few outfits and tell Muno that sure, she gave it a go, but it just wasn’t right. Then Muno would wear any one of her dozens of flashy — but functional! — outfits, and Pavan would don the tried and true sports bikini. But when Pavan walked out of the changing room, clad in her pink tennis skirt and white top, and she saw the thousand-watt smile on Muno’s face, “the pure joy,” as Pavan described it, “I said ‘Ok, I need to commit.’ So I did.”

There was still one issue: Wearing it in public.

“First of all, I’m trying to get over the embarrassment of walking out and people saying ‘Sarah is in a skirt, oh my God, what is happening?’ I had to get over that,” Pavan said of wearing the tennis skirt in Phoenix. “A…