Heather Watson speaks out against tennis sexism – three examples

With Wimbledon less than a week away, British number two Heather Watson has hit out at the trolls who blight the women's game.

Watson, who recorded her biggest win for two years at Eastbourne on Monday against Dominika Cibulkova, told the Radio Times that sport "isn't about looking perfect".

She said it was not her job to look "cute" on court, where she is "hustling and fighting".

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"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," she said.

"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.

"Sometimes I wish I could look cute on court, but you can't. You're just hustling and fighting and that's the job we have," added the 25-year-old. "And it just shows that we're strong and that sport isn't just for boys. And sport definitely isn't about looking perfect."

Watson has admitted in the past that she sometimes looks at Twitter after a defeat as a form of "punishment".

By coincidence the Radio Times interview came out on the same say that Serena Williams, who is pregnant with her first child, slapped down John McEnroe on Twitter after he claimed that if she was in the men's game she would be "like number 700 in the world".

Williams, who has 23 Grand Slam titles, responded to his comments on Twitter.

It raises questions about attitudes to the women's game in general. "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," says Haroon Siddique in The Guardian.

John Inverdale:

After Marion Bartoli won the tournament in 2013 the BBC commentator mused: "Do you think Bartoli's dad told her when she was little 'you’re never going to be a looker?'"

He apologised but lost his job as the BBC's head presenter of the tournament a year later.

He later explained: "I was feeling so ill that day, I had terrible hayfever and all I could think of was that I wanted to go home to bed. I had Andy Murray in the final the next day, I knew I had to be on form. Your mind is going all over the place, we're on air from 12 noon till 7pm with not a single word written and you've got to fill the time."

David Mercer:

Three year's before Inverdale's famous slip, another BBC commentator, David Mercer, apologised after commenting on Laura Robson's "puppy fat".

During the 2010 tournament he said: "I suppose the one thing that I have at the back of my mind at the moment, is Laura mobile enough around the court? Perhaps a little puppy fat at the moment, the sort of thing you'd expect her to lose as she concentrates on tennis full-time."

The comments did not go down well. "The women's tennis tour is already, according to popular legend, a world prone to anxiety about body image and even occasional anorexia," reported The Guardian. "It was thus not the BBC's most sensitive moment when one of its Wimbledon TV commentators questioned whether Britain's top junior player has something of a weight issue."

Ian Cohen:

In 2015 Australian Open host Ian Cohen caused incredulity when he interviewed Eugenie Bouchard after a match, and rather than talk about tennis asked her to "give us a twirl".

The Canadian appeared bemused by the request. Earlier in the tournament he had asked Serena Williams to do the same.