To improve comfort and performance of functional sportswear, the commonly used method is to apply quick dry and high wicking fabrics to enhance moisture management and promote ventilation. However, the fabric tends to stick to the skin (particularly in the chest, shoulder and upper back area of the body) during heavy sweating, which creates “clingy” discomfort, hindersthe convective heat transfer and the evaporative cooling. Hence, the aim of this paper is to present a novel racket sportswear with ventilation design,which combines spacer and mesh structures, and experimental evidence on the advantages of the novelracket T-shirt in improving wearers’ thermal comfort during playing badminton. The performance of the novel designed racket T-shirt was compared with the commercial ones by wearer trials on eight male subjects. The thermal and moisture sensation of skin before and after playing badminton for 1 hour were evaluated by 7-point scale questionnaires. The results show that the novel designed sportswear is cooler/dryer than the commercial ones in skin thermal/moisture sensation, no matter before or after exercises, which demonstrates that the player can get better comfort when wearing the novel racket active sportswear during playing badminton.