French Open: Osaka to skip press briefings, cites mental health
Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka on Wednesday said she will not take questions from the press at this year’s French Open, saying the nature of news conferences puts an undue burden on players’ mental health.
Players can be fined up to $20,000 for skipping a media conference at Grand Slams and Osaka said she hoped the “considerable amount” that she expected to forfeit would go towards a mental health charity.
“I’m writing this to say I’m not going to do any press during Roland Garros,” the Japanese world number two, who lives in the US, wrote on Twitter.
“I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes’ mental health, and this rings true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one.
“We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds, and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me,” she said. Expecting players to answer questions after losses amounted to “kicking a person while they’re down”, Osaka added.
Sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz, who works with French Open winner Iga Swiatek and travels with the teenager’s team, said she appreciated Osaka’s concern about facing questions after a defeat. “I absolutely understand the decision in terms of when a player loses a match, and tennis is such a specific sport because at the end of the tournament only one person does not lose,” she said on Thursday. “It’s tough emotionally to cope with it; it is one of the challenges that tennis brings. It’s sometimes overwhelming,” she added. Osaka, 23, made headlines this week when sports business website Sportico reported she had earned $55.2 million over the past 12 months, a record haul for a female athlete.
She has in the past used her considerable press attention to highlight issues of police violence and racial inequality.
The claycourt Grand Slam, which runs from Sunday to June 13, has never been a happy hunting ground for Osaka, who skipped the event last year amid the Covid-19 pandemic. She has not gone past the third round in her four appearances.
World governing body International Tennis Federation and the WTA Tour did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The French tennis federation FFT, which organises the major, said it would make “no comment for now”. Former world number one Osaka said the decision was “nothing personal” against the tournament.