Judge players by their game, not looks etc
Veteran BBC commentator John Inverdale's unfortunate comment on Wimbledon 2013 winner Marion Bartoli reflects the lopsided expectations that people — even experts like the BBC journalist — entertain of international sports celebrities. Apparently, it's no longer enough for the sports icons to do well in their discipline; they are also supposed to be stunning enough to feature on magazine covers as models. If they are not endowed with qualities that can turn heads, they have to face barbs like Bartoli has had to. In the course of analysing the French player, Inverdale had said, “Do you think Bartoli's dad told when she was little, ‘You're never going to be a lookerIJ You'll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight'IJ” Although she took the inappropriate remark in her stride, the gutsy player did strike back to say that she never dreamed of being a model but wanted to be the Wimbledon champion —which she had become. After a massive outcry in social media and elsewhere, the BBC journalist hastened to soften the blow by acknowledging that “Marion Bartoli is an incredible role model”. But it was not an apology, and was never meant to be one. Inverdale is clearly obsessed with and enchanted by ‘lookers' such as Maria Sharapova — and perhaps by others like Chris Evert lloyd who ruled women's tennis in the seventies. But he mustn't forget that Chris Evert lloyd also had to deal with all-time tennis great Martina Navratilova who, too, must have been told that she was never ‘going to be a looker'. Perhaps the BBC commentator will enlighten us with a list of ‘lookers' in tennis and how the looks contributed to their title-winning performances. Having said that, the unneeded emphasis on a model-like presence is something that quite a few players have themselves developed, and that obsession has in many cases hampered their concentration on the game itself. Indian tennis player Sania Mirza is a good example of that. In recent years, she has been more talked about for her looks and modeling assignments than for her game, which has dipped sharply. Her career is virtually over.
It is a coincidence that Bartoli has been subjected to cheap comments in a year when Fred Perry's record of being the only British in 77 years to win the championship, was finally broken by Andy Murray. Perry was another player who had to face the worst barbs from the well-heeled, genteel club that identified itself with Wimbledon. The British daily, The Independent, informs us in an article how his victory had gone virtually unsung in 1936 because he was considered too rough and too uncultured to be part of the elite group — never mind the All England Club title. Good looks and conventional manners are not negatives, but so aren't their absence. Players like Perry and Bartoli will be spoken about not for their looks or best social conduct, but for their performance. That's where the appraisal should begin — and end.