Tennis: Heather Watson tells online trolls: sport isn't about looking perfect

The British tennis player Heather Watson has spoken out against online abuse she has received over her weight and appearance and urged other women to “feel comfortable in their own skin”.

Watson, 25, won the mixed doubles title at Wimbledon last year but received abuse after she lost in the first round of the singles having failed to convert three match points against the German player Annika Beck.

In an interview with the Radio Times, published on Tuesday, Watson, who became the first British woman to win a title at the All England Club for almost 30 years, sent a defiant message to her online critics.

Speaking before this year’s tournament, the qualifiers for which began on Monday, she said: “We aren’t celebrities who have people on hand to do makeup all the time. I actually love wearing sports clothes, having my hair tied up in a bun, not wearing makeup, and I think more girls should feel comfortable in their own skin and not have to cover themselves in makeup all the time. I do love putting on makeup but you don’t have to wear it every single day and you don’t have to change your body to look like pictures you see on the internet.”

After the gruelling three-set match against Beck, Watson likened Twitter to a form of “self-punishment”. But there have long been concerns about the extent of anxiety about body image on the women’s tour, even before the age of social media.

While much of the online abuse has been blamed on gamblers who have betted on matches and lost, when it comes to sexism the culprits are not just anonymous trolls.

In 2010, the BBC apologised when the tennis commentator David Mercer suggested Watson’s friend, Laura Robson, could do with losing “a little puppy fat”. The corporation apologised three years later when John Inverdale said the newly crowned Wimbledon singles champion Marion Bartoli was “never going to be a looker”.

In another example of the treatment afforded to female players, Canada’s Eugenie Bourchard was asked to “give us a twirl” during an on-court interview after winning a match at the Australian Open in 2015.

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Despite her record-breaking career, Serena Williams, who has won 23 major singles titles, has still had to put up with constant comments about her body shape. She has long dismissed the detractors, once saying: “I could lose 20lb and I’m still going to have these knockers and I’m going to have this ass, and that’s just the way it is.”

Watson, who came close to victory against Williams at Wimbledon in 2015 before the American went on to win the sixth of her seven titles at the All England Club, said that while she sometimes wished she looked better on court, it was not realistic in the heat of battle.

She said female players were showing their strength on court and that sport “isn’t just for boys. And sport definitely isn’t about looking perfect”.