On Wednesday, May 26, Naomi Osaka penned an impassioned letter announcing that she will not partake in the post-match press conference at the 2021 French Open. In an effort to safeguard her mental health, the four-time Grand Slam singles champion shared her decision via social media just four days before the start of this year’s second Grand Slam.
— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) May 26, 2021
“I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes’ mental health, and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one,” the 23-year-old wrote. “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.” Athletes are often subjected to a flurry of questions underscored with criticism and for Osaka, observing players enter press rooms emotionally fragile and still encounter beratement feels like “kicking a person while they’re down.” Although, the tennis titan also clarifies that her decision is “nothing personal” to the tournament as she’d developed cordial relationships with journalists over the years.
Willing to accept the lofty fines for ditching the news conferences, Osaka said, “if the organizations think that they can just keep saying, ‘do press or you’re gonna be fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh.” Osaka, who made $55 million last year (surpassing any female athlete ever), concluded, “Anyways, I hope the considerable amount that I get fined for this will go towards a mental health charity.”
Continuing the conversation of how press criticism can erode at the mental health of athletes, Osaka shared a clip from a then-14-year-old Venus Williams when a reporter questioned her confidence in taking home a trophy against her upcoming opponent. “I know I can beat her…I’m very confident,” Williams grinned, to which the reporter responds, “You say it so easily. Why?” She continues, “Cause I believe it,” before her father Richard Williams steps in to defend her capabilities that would later lead her to become an Olympic gold medalist. “You’ve got to understand that you’re dealing with [the] image of a 14-year-old child. And this child is gonna be out there playing when your old *ss and me are gonna be in the grave,” he told the reporter in the video. “You’re dealing with a little Black kid. Let her be a kid! She answered that with a lot of confidence, [so] leave that alone.”
