Tennis stars are rightly hitting back over sexism
Idon’t know when it all started – perhaps with that Seventies Athena poster of the blonde tennis player cheekily revealing her bottom – but the talk about female tennis players has often been more focused on their appearance than their game. From Anna Kournikova to Maria Sharapova and Serena Williams, one can almost hear the delighted collective intake of breath when a female player appears who cannot only make a good show in the rankings but also has the glamour to launch a thousand products.
Social media carping, players say, has made the pressure worse. Last week, the British player Heather Watson spoke out against the appearance police: “We aren’t celebrities who have people on hand to do make-up all the time. I actually love wearing sports clothes, having my hair tied up in a bun, not wearing make-up all the time, and I think more girls should feel comfortable in their own skin.” It’s good to hear female tennis stars hitting it hard back over the net, reminding us that above all they are athletes with strong personalities. The thing about the model for the alluringly dreamy tennis girl in the Athena poster, it turned out later, was that she had borrowed the racket and the plimsolls, and never even liked the game.