So Eugenie Bouchard was asked by Channel Seven interviewer Ian Cohen to “give us a twirl”. My first reaction was mild horror that a courtside interviewer could be so stupid as to think that this was an appropriate question to ask a young tennis player post-match.
Surely we have progressed past the obvious and overt sexualisation of female athletes?
The more I thought about it, however, the more muddied the waters of my mind became.
Much of the online condemnation of the question has centred around the assertion that an interviewer would never dare ask a male player something similar. Unfortunately for the game of tennis, this is simply not true.
World number 3 Rafal Nadal is constantly quizzed about his fashion choices, and was recently told in a post-match interview that he had three marriage proposals from the crowd he needed to respond to. This was after facing a barrage of whistles and cat calls while changing his shirt.
Nadal treated the interview with the same awkward good humour that Bouchard displayed, though it was clear Nadal was much more experienced in dealing with this line of questioning than the young Canadian.
Tennis, as much as any sport in the world, allows players to trade on their fashion choices. Without uniforms to constrain their choices, many athletes ink lucrative sponsorship deals with fashion manufacturers, and it forms a crucial part of their marketable image.
Does this excuse blatantly sexist connotations when speaking to them? Absolutely not. But it does create a situation where it can be difficult to differentiate between the player and their clothes, and it is becoming increasingly problematic finding the line that shouldn’t be crossed.
Every player should be completely in control of how they market themselves during their short career. I don’t begrudge anyone their chance to make a buck in whatever manner their prodigious talent allows them to. But we, and they, have to understand that the choices they make influence how we see them.
Players must accept that every time they step onto the court wearing something that will make them money, people will want to talk about it. In fact, the players want people to talk about it. And sure as anything the manufacturers want people to talk about it.
But, like all things, there is a right and a wrong way to do this.
Bouchard hasn’t gone down the path of the risqué photo shoots that Anna Kournikova found so tempting. While she may have clothing sponsorships, and shows an interest in the fashion choices of other players on tour, none of this comes from a sexualised viewpoint.
So there is an understandable uneasiness when she is confronted by a request like she was. I don’t see the remark as malicious, I see it as a hark back to a time that we should have left behind. A time when bosses gave their secretaries a little pat on the backside for a job well done.
It just felt creepy. It’s not the crime of the century, but certainly not appropriate for an interview supposedly about the match she has just won.
This is not just a matter for female tennis players, it is a matter for tennis itself. Just as Bouchard should never have to give an interviewer a twirl, so should Rafa never have to respond to marriage proposals.
Save this for their 60 Minutes interviews and Woman’s Day spreads. After the match, we want to hear about, of all things, the match!
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