Agnieszka Radwanska the No. 4 tanked tennis player and former Wimbledon finalist, has been criticized in her Polish homeland after posing naked in ESPN’s ‘Body Issue’.The magazine features a number of naked athletes, including Radwanska sitting by a swimming pool full of tennis balls.

Although her modesty remains intact, Radwanska, who has emphasized her Catholic upbringing in the past, has come under fire.

“It’s a shame that someone who has declared their love for Jesus is now promoting the mentality of men looking at a woman as a thing rather than a child of God worthy of respect and love,” said Father Marek Dziewiecki, a senior Catholic priest.

“If she meets a man who she can truly love and establish a happy family and raise Catholic children, then she would probably have to hide these pictures from relatives.”

Tomasz Terlikowski, editor of Fronda, a Catholic website, criticized the 24-year-old tennis star, who made the final of Wimbledon in 2012, writing that a woman’s “nudity should be reserved for her husband”

In 2011 Miss Radwanska proclaimed that she was “not ashamed of her faith” and that she wanted to set an example to young people. She was also pictured on court standing next to the name “Jesus” written out by using tennis balls.

Radwanska has however been unabashed by the photo shoot, following the footsteps of a number of tennis stars who have shed their clothes for ESPN, including Serena Williams and Vera Zvonareva.

“I feel fortunate that I stay pretty lean without having to do much gym work,” she said in the interview with the magazine.

The criticism aimed at the tennis player failed to halt the rapid spread of the pictures across the Polish media and the internet.
Although a sporting superstar in Poland, Miss Radwanska retains a low-key profile off court so the photographs of her bearing all her body have attracted considerable attention.