Wimbledon: Britain’s Laura Robson and the word ‘slut’

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Laura Robson, a 16-year-old British player of some promise who received a wild card into the main draw and lost to fourth-seeded Jelena Jankovic 6-3, 7-6 (5) on Monday in the first round at Wimbledon, had to answer a couple of tough questions afterward.

She had been quoted in the British edition of Vogue magazine earlier in the month as saying, ‘Some of the tennis girls, they’re sluts. They go with every guy and make such a bad name for themselves -- and you don’t want to be known for stuff like that. You want to be more discreet.’

After her match Monday, Robson was asked, ‘Have you experienced any unfriendliness from the other girls on tour by calling them sluts in that magazine?’ Apparently not. Robson said, ‘No, they’ve been really nice to me. It’s hard to kind of talk about it. But they’ve all been really nice to me, basically.’

Asked if she thought her comment had been taken out of context, Robson said, ‘I think it was. But, you know, I prefer not to talk about it.’

Hard to fathom how the word ‘slut’ could be taken out of context, even from a 16-year-old. But when you’re 16 and probably talk that way among friends, spoken words don’t seem quite as ugly as they do once they hit print.

-- Diane Pucin in Wimbledon, England