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Monday Nov 18, 2024
Saturday, 27 July 2013 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
The 24-year-old raised eyebrows in Christian circles in Poland with the pictures for an edition of the American magazine ESPN entitled “The Body” which showed her sitting by a pool and lying face down on an inflatable lilo.
But in a statement posted in both English and Polish on her Facebook page, Miss Radwanska said: “The pictures are not meant to cause offence and to brand them as immoral does not take into account the context of the magazine.
“Moreover the pictures do not contain any explicit imagery whatsoever.
“I train extremely hard to keep my body in shape and that’s what the article and the magazine is all about.”
Although she retained her modesty in the photographs, despite being minus clothes, conservative critics were quick to round on Miss Radwanska, especially given that she is a practicing Catholic from a devout family and once proclaimed she was “not ashamed of her faith.”
But Miss Radwanska, who is ranked number four in the world and reached the Wimbledon semi-finals this year, defended her decision to go naked.
“I agreed to participate to help encourage young people, and especially girls, to exercise, to stay in shape and be healthy,” she said.
“The Body issue is a celebration of the beauty of the best athletes in the world,” continued the tennis star. “It includes men and women of all ages and all shapes and sizes.”
She also pointed out that her friends and fellow tennis players Serena Williams and Daniela Hantuchowa had appeared in the magazine, as had the 77-year-old former golf star Gary Player.
Miss Radwanska was not the first Polish tennis player to go naked for a magazine.
In February Magda Domachowska, a former world number 37, revealed much more for the Polish edition of Playboy, but the only reaction she elicited was a flurry in sales.
