to be grateful to John Inverdale......

[curlew]

... For singlehandedly making feminism's point.

[MorrisZapp]

Yup. Open jaws all round in our house. I can hardly credit what he said.

[joanofarchitrave]

ooh what? [am not on Twitter]

[curlew]

here

[joanofarchitrave]

God what a steaming nobcheese.

[joanofarchitrave]

I bet he will have absolutely no idea what he's done that's so wrong.

'What's wrong with being sexy?'

[curlew]

I would like to link to all the twitter comments that are even more hideous and offensive- but my IPad won't let me. There are pages and pages of awful stuff........

[twinklyfingers]

I have always known he is a dick. This is just absolute proof.

[AgentZigzag]

Fucking hell.

"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 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."

I would be seriously wondering about someone who thought that would be an appropriate thing for a Dad to say to his daughter.

'You've got to compensate for us giving you the fugly gene, and make that your main drive to working harder'

Eww, creepy.

[joanofarchitrave]

Oh God, he's got daughters. Great. Incidentally, 'John' (if that is your real name), my father's main influence over me was to make me pathologically desperate to be as unlike him as possible. All the more so if he said some shit like this to me.

[MrsWilliamBodie]

It is also insulting to Sharapova. I'm sure she did more than just look pretty and be tall to win all her grand slam titles.

Bartoli's response was a good one "Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I'm sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes."

[TanteRose]

Bloody hell

Great response from Bartoli

[scripsi]

Unbelievable!

[AKissIsNotAContract]

He should be sacked. What a fucking embarrassment to Britain.

[Littleballofhate]

What a smart response to an asinine comment!

[mathanxiety]

There is a lot of arrogance behind remarks like that. You would have to have a very high opinion of yourself to even think something like that, let alone say it into a microphone when you know your own face and spare tyre have been seen countless times by the public.

[PastaBeeandCheese]

Disgusting. It just shows what some of these male commentators really think of female athletes.

I don't think the BBC have dealt with this appropriately. An apology on his behalf is not acceptable.

[waikikamookau]

absolutely terrible.
Wimbledon isn't a modelling contest, no matter if some are tall and blonde.

[waikikamookau]

what was lyndsey davenport's reaction to his question, anyone know?

[raisah]

Even the comentary on BBC1 was biased towards Lisicki because she was tall & blonde. The cameras coverage was more on Lisicki than on Bartoli. I hardly watched wimbledon because of the commentary, which is getting more & more irritating each year.

I am not surprised he said it tbh, there appears to be now more male presenters who like Saville saw women as objects. Inverfale made sexist comments & Saville went one step further & acted on them, the BBC covered up then & are apologising now. Not much has changed.

[Cherriesarelovely]

He is an idiot. I got sick enough of this during the Olympics.....not enough that someone is an Olympic athlete, they have to conform to the conventional idea of what it means to be sexy. Bollocks.

[Burmobasher]

Ha ha what a prick

[BalloonSlayer]

at this . . .

I was also a night or so before when his opening comments were that the two women's matches were "two local derbies," as they were between a French woman and a Belgian, and a German and a Pole respectively!

I was outraged a) at the jingoism of it "all those johnny foreigner places are the same" and b) the idea that anyone can put forward the notion that Poland and Germany are the same place, when one so infamously invaded the other in an attempt to make them become the same country.

DH said I was overthinking it.

I may now re-visit this argument now JI's twattery has been officially recognised.

[ConferencePear]

........ and John Inverdale is really good at .......... ?

[NewLifeDownSouth]

Loving bartoli's response! And v pleased for her that she won.