Wimbledon champion calls out BBC pundit's 'disgusting' comments live on air

Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli faced public scrunity over her appearance.

Marion Bartoli won Wimbledon in 2013 (Image: Getty)

Marion Bartoli says she “still can’t understand” a now-infamous comment that John Inverdale made about her looks ahead of her Wimbledon 2013 title triumph. The French star lifted her only Major trophy at the All England Club 13 years ago, but while she prepared to face Sabine Lisicki in the final, Inverdale said she was “never going to be a looker” while speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live. Bartoli went on to claim a 6-1 6-4 victory and retired from professional tennis just a few weeks later.

In the years following her retirement, the former world No. 7 faced a public battle with anorexia. Bartoli’s public appearance was scruntinised throughout her career, but Inverdale’s remarks understandably remain a sore point.

“I still can’t understand the comment he made,” Bartoli told The Times. “How on earth, when someone just achieved a childhood dream, can you say that?

“It is just absolutely disgusting, so yes, unfortunately it’s been a constant pressure. And it’s only on female [players]. A male would never be treated that way.”

Marion Bartoli has started coaching Britain's Harriet Dart (Image: Getty)

While discussing Bartoli ahead of the 2013 Wimbledon final, Inverdale told Radio 5 Live listeners: “I just wonder if her dad, because he has obviously been the most influential person in her life, did say to her when she was 12, 13, 14 maybe, ‘Listen, you are never going to be, you know, a looker.

“‘You are never going to be somebody like a [Maria] Sharapova, you're never going to be 5ft 11, you're never going to be somebody with long legs, so you have to compensate for that. You are going to have to be the most dogged, determined fighter that anyone has ever seen on the tennis court if you are going to make it’, and she kind of is.”

The following day, the British broadcaster issued a public apology on air ahead of the Wimbledon men’s singles final. “Before we start, I probably ought to just briefly return to yesterday and a clumsy phrase that I used about Marion Bartoli which has understandably caused something of a furore,” he said.

“The point I was trying to make, in a rather ham-fisted kind of way, was that in a world where the public perception of tennis players is that they're all 6ft tall Amazonian athletes, Marion – who is the Wimbledon champion – bucks that trend.”

Bartoli announced her immediate retirement a month later during a press conference at the Cincinnati Open, aged 28, admitting that her body would not allow her to continue. The former world No. 7 then hit her lowest point three years later, when she wanted to compete in the legends’ invitational event at Wimbledon.

By then, she had lost around 30kg. At the time, Bartoli said she was dealing with a mystery virus, but she has since admitted that she became obsessed with losing weight. It was the AELTC’s then-chairman who gave the French star something of a wake-up call.

“Philip Brook, who was chairman of the All England Club, told me, ‘Marion, we can’t let you play in the Legends event. You’re not in good enough health’. That’s when I really hit the lowest of the low, because you can take everything away from me, but not tennis,” she recalled.

“Tennis is my true passion. When the racket is in my hand, that’s when I’m happiest, so that’s when I thought, ‘I have to get myself back up somehow. I can’t let this destroy me’. I will be forever thankful to Philip because I was in such denial that I think otherwise I would have kept hurting myself. He was strong enough to tell me and that got me to understand that I had to recover.”

Bartoli has since become a pundit and works with the Sky Sports team at events like the US Open. She also coaches Britain’s Harriet Dart, who won her first WTA Tour title as a qualifier at the Guangzhou Open last week.