Osaka fined for media boycott, Thiem loses
PARIS: Naomi Osaka was fined $15,000 at the French Open for skipping a post-match news conference after her first-round victory Sunday—and threatened by all four Grand Slam tournaments with stiffer penalties, including being defaulted, if she continues to avoid meeting with the media. The fine will come out of Osaka’s prize money and was announced in a joint statement from the president of the French tennis federation, Gilles Moretton, and the heads of the other majors.
Osaka returned to Roland Garros after skipping the trip last time, turning in a mistakefilled 6-4, 7-6 (4) victory over 63rd-ranked Patricia Maria Tig at Court Philippe Chatrier on Day 1 in Paris.
Other results perhaps were more newsworthy—that’s certainly the case for US Open champion and two-time French Open runner-up Dominic Thiem’s 4-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 loss to 68th-ranked Pablo Andujar— but the events that unfolded after the Japanese superstar’s match were of high interest.
That’s because Osaka vowed in a Twitter post Wednesday, and then kept that promise Sunday, to stay away from the standard back-and-forth with the media in Paris, the sort of thing athletes in various sports do as a matter of course. She framed it as a mental health issue, saying that it creates self-doubt to have to answer questions after a loss.
Players at Grand Slam tournaments are required to attend news conferences if requested to do so; refusing is punishable by fines of up to $20,000. That, of course, is not a big deal to Osaka, the world’s highest-earning female athlete thanks to endorsement contracts worth tens of millions of dollars annually. “It’s her own choice. I think she’s capable of making her own choices and she will do always what’s best for her,” Tig said. “I think that’s what’s happening now. It’s her choice of doing what she feels is best for her.”
The Grand Slam tournaments’ statement said Osaka has been “advised” that “should she continue to ignore her media obligations during the tournament, she would be exposing herself to possible further Code of Conduct infringement consequences.”
Citing the rule book, the statement noted that “tougher sanctions” from “repeat violations” could include default — being disqualified from the tournament — and “the trigger of a major offense investigation that could lead to more substantial fines and future Grand Slam suspensions.”
Osaka’s agent did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the AP on Sunday.
The whole thing didn’t mean Osaka was able to entirely elude any question about her problems playing on red clay, however. She did go ahead with the perfunctory exchange of pleasantries with on-court “interviewers” who lob softball questions so spectators can hear something from match winners.