Naomi Broady's Wimbledon win is a victory for the 'bad girl' of tennis
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Version 0 of 1. Watching Wimbledon involves certain traditions. As well as the strawberries, the rain delays and the alliterative naming of hills, there is the inevitable cheering on of one hugely successful British player, while watching all the rest quietly crash out of the draw in the first round. Not yesterday, though. Two British players have made it to the second round, and their fortunes couldn't be more different – one last year's champion, the other a player ranked 163 in the world, whose promising career was cut short at 17 when the Lawn Tennis Association withdrew her funding. In 2007, Naomi Broady posted pictures of herself on a night out on the social media site Bebo. Since described by the Telegraph as "comparatively tame", they were branded evidence of a "lack of discipline" and "unprofessional behaviour" by the LTA, which subsequently withdrew her funding and that of fellow player David Rice, who also appeared in allegedly risqué pictures. Yet perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the media interest, even before her win, has focused on Broady. Only one of the pictures is cited with regularity – that of 17-year-old Broady posing by a condom machine. "I was trying to live," Broady said of the incident this week, "for a few nights at least, as a normal 17-year-old." After her victory, Broady made it very clear what the effect of the LTA's decision has been. "I think it's pretty clear I've been the only person at every practice session for the past few years. I've not had any coach there, from the federation or anywhere else. I'm the only one that's been there every single day." Since the incident, Broady's name has rarely appeared in the media without some variation of "the bad girl of British tennis" attached to it. Meanwhile, she has been playing without a coach, relying on her family's financial support to fund her career. Back in 2007, most of us hadn't really figured out social media. If we were tweeting at all, it was probably of the confused "Where am I? What's this all about?" variety. Does anyone even remember Bebo? Many tennis players have spoken of drinking during their teenage years. Andy Murray has spoken openly of his time training in Barcelona as a teenager, and the nights out which led to his decision to stop drinking. "I had a bad experience. I made myself look like a prat in front of my friends. The only reason I was drinking was to see what it was like to get drunk." What would have happened if pictures of those occasions had appeared on the internet? Would that have been the end of Murray's funding as well? Perhaps, in a decade or so, this will be good news for Broady. Remember when John McEnroe was maligned by most of the press for his unprofessional, tempestuous behaviour on court? Probably not, because since his playing days he seems to have gone through some sort of miraculous rehab. Yet hardly a match goes by without his fellow commentators joking about his "bad boy" image, the trouble he gave umpires, the entertainment it gave the crowds. Perhaps because, while his behaviour on court was unpredictable, now it has been subsumed into a carefully crafted persona, the like of which we're used to seeing everywhere, from the commentators to the players. From Federer's tailored jackets to Sugarpova, what we see, for the most part, is the product of sponsors and endorsements. Their real selves are hidden. Nostalgically, we love the bad boys. We love clips of McEnroe kicking off, Nastase being nasty. We forgive them for being young, talented, wild. Do we forgive female players for the same? "A steadying influence," Sue Barker commented on Murray appointing his new female coach Amélie Mauresmo, while Peter Fleming speculated on whether Mauresmo's influence is behind Murray's new, clean-cut hair. She doesn't have to be a superstar coach, they both agreed. Well groomed, a calming influence – this is what we seem to expect of women in tennis. No wonder one picture of Naomi Broady, looking like an unmanaged teenager for one night, caused such offence. Let's hope, bad girl or not, she keeps on winning. |