Radio 5 Live’s John Innervale marked Marion Bartoli’s Wimbledon victory Saturday with the following observation about the 28 year old French no. 1 ; “”Do you think Bartoli’s dad told her when she was little, ‘You’re never going to be a looker, you’ll never be a [Maria] Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight’?” While the analyst has received no shortage of ridicule for his remarks, few critiques have been as on point as one penned by The Guardian’s Tanya Gold, who complains Inverdale, “even had the malice to place the words in her father’s mouth.”
Even at this moment of exquisite delight, was Daddy ashamed of Marion’s inability to incite lust in Inverdale? I did not know professional women’s tennis was simply a vehicle for the expression of masculine desire in high temperatures; or that Inverdale had a right to feel aggrieved by Bartoli’s appearance – which is, by the way, perfectly acceptable. (She is, if it matters, and it doesn’t, pretty; but who is pretty enough in these days of dull homogenous beauty?) I do not wish that Murray had received the same grotesque treatment; but that he did not is remarkable.
Inverdale had said earlier that any mocking of Bartoli’s looks was done “in a nice way” and that “she is an incredible role model for people who aren’t born with all the attributes of natural athletes”. I would have thought that winning Wimbledon displayed all the attributes of a natural athlete, except Inverdale did not personally desire Bartoli; in that, she failed. Whether Murray is sexually desirable to individual presenters is not a matter for the BBC, and, in this case, they know it.
Bartoli understood him perfectly. I do not know if she is aware of the comments made about her on Twitter as she played – calling her, among other things, too ugly to rape. (In fact, the blogger made a factual error here, which compounded his psychopathy. No woman is too ugly to rape, because rape has nothing to do with desire.) But she was told of Inverdale’s comment and said: “I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact.”