First tennis player to get boob job reveals comment from male journalist that left her stunned

Dodin stepped back from tennis in December 2024 to undergo treatment for a chronic inner-ear condition that had affected her for a decade.

Her comeback began quietly at an ITF tournament in Reims in late September, where she won her opening match against a lower-ranked opponent.

But the reaction to a candid interview in her native France ensured that her return was anything but low-key.

Speaking to RMC Sport, Dodin revealed that during her break she had undergone breast augmentation surgery — becoming, by her own account, the first active professional tennis player to do so.

What began as a personal admission quickly snowballed into international coverage.

When recounting the media attention to the Daily Mail, Dodin admitted she had anticipated some curiosity but was taken aback by the intensity of the reaction.

“Yes and no,” she said when asked if she expected the story to go viral.

“Yes, because in this sport, it’s not like usual — nobody has done it before, so I knew people and journalists were going to talk about it.

“But no, because for me it’s nothing crazy. It’s just boobs, it’s nothing. Maybe people were going to talk about it because it’s unusual, but not that much.”

The story reached its most surprising moment when Dodin recalled being questioned by a male journalist who appeared genuinely concerned about whether the procedure had compromised her ability to play.

“He asked me, ‘But can you still play?’” Dodin said, laughing.

“And I was like, ‘Of course, yes! I didn’t put everything crazy.’ Of course, they’re big, but it’s not like I can’t play, you know?

“There are some tennis players who have bigger boobs than me, and they’re still playing. Just mine are fake, that’s it.”

The comment drew widespread attention, with many fans praising Dodin’s frankness and composure in the face of what she described as an outdated attitude.

The French player stressed that her surgeon had worked closely with her to ensure the operation would not interfere with her game.

“My surgeon knows tennis very well and was careful because I want to come back and play at a high level again,” she said.

While comparisons were inevitably drawn with Simona Halep — who spoke publicly about her own breast reduction surgery in 2009 and later went on to win Grand Slam titles — Dodin was quick to point out that her situation was entirely different.

Her decision, she explained, was personal rather than performance-driven.

“For me, it’s good to talk about something else besides tennis,” she said. “Yes, we are tennis players, but we are also normal people.

“In normal life, people are doing this kind of surgery too, so I don’t understand why we are judging something that normal people are doing. I’m feeling better in my body now, and in sport people always think we are just like robots. But we have private lives, friends, and other things.”