Naomi Osaka vs The French: Read It For Yourself
Photographed by flickr user, Nawal, CC BY 2.0
World number two Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from the French Open after the controversy over her refusal to speak to the media at the tournament.
In a tweet announcing the move, Japan’s Osaka also said she had “suffered long bouts of depression” since winning her first Grand Slam title in 2018.
The 23-year-old said last week she would not do news conferences at Roland Garros to protect her mental health.
“I never wanted to be a distraction,” the four-time major winner said.
On Sunday, Osaka won her opening match against Romania’s Patricia Maria Tig in straight sets and was fined $15,000 (£10,570) for not doing post-match media.
Later that day, a joint statement from Grand Slam organisers said Osaka could face expulsion from the tournament if she continued to avoid them.
That led to the player announcing her withdrawal on Monday, saying she was going to “take some time away from the court now”.
“When the time is right I really want to work with the Tour to discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans,” she added.
French Tennis Federation president Gilles Moretton said the withdrawal of the second seed was “unfortunate”.
“We are sorry and sad for Naomi,” Moretton added. “We wish her the best and quickest possible recovery, and we look forward to having Naomi at our tournament next year.
“As all the Grand Slams, the WTA, the ATP and the ITF, we remain very committed to all athletes’ wellbeing and to continually improving every aspect of players’ experience in our tournament, including with the media, like we have always strived to do.”
Couple things here. Professional athletes have a different life than regular folk, which we all know but maybe don’t fully considered. That “professional” part of it isn’t just what they do on the court. High level athletes like Osaka not only have commitments for these types of events but also contractual obligations that come with them. Things like media availability are also frequently part of their personal endorsement deals, and are a major part of their responsibilities, especially at a major tournament. But the crowd demanding professional athletes be robots because they have fame and riches are also missing the opportunity to point out that how the employer-employee relations navigate mental wellbeing is something that is not well-defined or even well handled in many cases. While media depictions of mental health and struggle have improved in media and culture, and some athletes are getting more open about discussing such things, we clearly are not there yet.
Naomi Osaka will have options and support far beyond what an hourly employee in a service job might, but both should have mechanisms of consideration that can be reasonably accommodating. That’s the conversation we should be having, not just hot taking this as a sports story.
Naomi Osaka’s full statement is here for you to read for yourself:
“This isn’t a situation I ever imagined or intended when I posted a few days ago. I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my wellbeing is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris.
“I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly, I would never trivialise mental health or use the term lightly.
“The truth is I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.
“Anyone that knows me knows I am introverted and anyone that has seen me at tournaments will notice that I’m often wearing headphones as that helps dull my social anxiety.
“Though the tennis press has always been kind to me (and I want to apologise to all the cool journalists who I may have hurt), I am not a natural public speaker and get huge waves of anxiety before I speak to the world’s media.
“I get really nervous and find it stressful to always try to engage and give you the best answers I can.
“So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious, so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences. I announced it preemptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that.
“I wrote privately to the tournament apologising and saying that I would be more than happy to speak with them after the tournament as the Slams are intense.
“I’m going to take some time away from the court now, but when the time is right I really want to work with the Tour to discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans.”
Good for her. I’d love to see all the other top seeded women walk out in support. I suspect that won’t happen, but every time something like goes on, it makes it just a tad easier for the next person.Report
There were a couple of Seahawks players a few years back who refused to speak to media and got fined. I even remember one of them going over the contract, and doing the exact bare minimum.
Still, there should be a mental health clause in such things.Report
Marshawn Lynch did it to great fanfare in violation of the CBA. Not sure if tennis players have collective bargaining or if it’s all individual contracts to participate.Report
Here we go. I’m here so I don’t get fined.Report
Leading to the Brooklyn 99 cameo where he was chatty.Report
It is not clear to me (and I could be overlooking it) whether this is something she gave notice of in advance, or if this was something that she sprang on them right before the tournament. It is a lot easier to make special accommodations if there is sufficient notice. If not, it’s understandable that the org would go by the existing rules with the possibility of changes being made for the future.Report
Oh please. If she doesn’t want to be interviewed the only “accommodation” that needs to be made is more snacks for the press while they wait for the next player. The organization can make whatever decision they want in real time. They made a choice to be sticks in the mud. That’s on them.Report
A major source of revenue for professional sports are media contracts. Those media contracts include things relating to media availability. If you want to be paid boatloads of money to play sports, you have to get on board with how those boatloads of money are generated.Report
That’s fine, but it’s not the French Open that is skinned in that issue . . . and Nike seems fine with her so far…Report
What are you talking about?
The French Open paid out 38M Euros in prize money last year.
Wiki lists the various TV contracts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Open#Television_coverage
I don’t know the exact finances of the tennis organizations but suffice it to say much of the prize money comes from the TV contracts. And if part of those rights include access to the athletes at press conferences, well, guess what: that is part of the gig.
She should have talked with tournament officials before entering. She didn’t. She broke her contractual obligations, was punished, and informed of what would happen if she did so again. She opted out.
What do you think should have happened differently? The tournament should have told all their TV partners — all of whom want to see and hear from one of the best players in the sport — to just go kick rocks while collecting millions or bilions of dollars from them?Report
FTR, Osaka has made over $450K in tournament winnings from the French Open.Report
She’s not the only, or best compensated or most famous female player there. The French Open likely lost exactly zero dollars from this. Hell they probably get more from the added reporting generated by the controversy . . . . And again her biggest sponsor Nike (which is where many professional athletes make their money) is fine with her actions.
The French Open has and had a lot of options that would have satisfied its contract without fining her or essentially forcing her to withdraw. They choice to go in the opposite direction of all those choices.Report
Actually, she was literally the highest earning female athlete ever last year.
To your and Michael Cain below, I’m not arguing that the pressers themselves are money makers. But as is usually the case in most professional sports situations where the question is, “Why do they care if Athlete X does Non-Sport-Thing Y?” it is because someone is paying for that to happen.
Yes, the tournament could have simply looked the other way. They could have done a lot of things. But they see her and all the other players’ participation in the press conferences as important and necessary.
She has no obligation to play in the tournament and exercised her right to withdraw.
Again, she could have avoided much of this by talking with them beforehand. Asking your employer for forgiveness instead of permission to break a rule you know you are going to break is rarely a winning proposition.Report
Some media contracts are revenue sources — say, the ones like “Our network will pay you $500M for the exclusive broadcast rights in the US.” And those networks get much better than press-conference access to the star athletes. So do first-rate writers. The people with the Sport Illustrated assignment to cover the French Open are going to get better access than someone there on spec. The press conferences being complained about here are largely second- or third-tier people who either: (a) ask the same questions every time or (b) badger the athletes in hopes of provoking them. The amount of revenue generated by the people at those press conferences is vanishingly small.Report
It should be simple enough to program an Alexa to do these interviews.
“How are you feeling?”
“I feel good. I love playing {insert sport here}.”
“Is the {insert body part here} bothering you?”
“No, I’m strong.”
“What do you think about {insert name here}?”
“{insert pronoun here}’s a tough competitor, but I’m confident.”
etc.Report
Just don’t let them ask her about playing on clayReport
When they train the AI behind it, can they use Gregg Popovich? Please?Report
Hire a look-a-like model/actress as a stand in and call it done. Everyone would know it’s not her just like we know actors don’t do their own stunts.
If there is extra drama generated by this, then that’s a good thing from everyone’s point of view.Report
I’m not really sure what to make of this situation. During the early days of celebrity culture, many celebrities accepted or had it forced on them that they needed to make themselves available for the press and interactions with the general public as a fame tax of sort. This was true for actors, athletes, and musicians. This could be very grueling work but they seemed to know that being loved and respected by the public required more give than just appearing in films or TV, releasing albums, doing concerts, or playing sports. Some celebrities seemed to have been more open than others.
I understand why this would be very draining but what seems to happen these days is that many celebrities do not want to provide any connection to the public beyond what they do at all. This seems like they want to stop playing the game and be a special caste unbothered by us ordinary mortals. That isn’t a good look.Report
I think this goes even further. These are pretty much contractual obligations… not just loose understandings of what it means to be a celebrity. “You want to play in the French Open? You have to do press conferences. You don’t want to do press conferences? Skip the tournament.”Report
A special caste? I think you’ve got it completely upside-down. No one should feel any obligation to share beyond his comfort level, neither artist nor athlete nor “ordinary mortal”. A performer owes me only a performance, and only if I buy a ticket.Report
I don’t buy this. It simply isn’t possible to have a society or a working relationship where nobody ever has to go out of their comfort zone at anytime. That only works if everybody is truly equal in terms of status. That isn’t going to happen. There are always people who have to either go out of their own comfort zone or deal with never getting anything they want, people who stay firmly within their own comfort zone without much of a penalty to them, and everything in–between. Power is important and powerful high status people are always going to be better able to enforce their boundaries and be less disadvantaged by them than less powerful people.Report
I was talking about *sharing* beyond one’s comfort level. A great athletic or artistic work should be able to stand on its own.
It’s complicated, I admit. And I think women’s tennis is kind of messed up (as I commented in reply to Dark Matter). I’m speaking more about the normative, how things should be, than the positive, how things are.
Most athletes and artists aren’t interesting. They’re obsessive, so they might not be broad in their interests, and the thing that they’re obsessive about might not give them insight into other things (or even their field of expertise). Add to that the way they’re coached to stay within the lines during interviews, and the net result is unwatchable.
But that said, even the most fascinating performer shouldn’t be pressured into revealing more about their lives than they want to. And they don’t have to – many stars manage to remain private.Report
She’s not famous for being famous. She’s famous for being a successful athlete. Unlike an actor or model, fame isn’t useful to her in terms of success.
For someone dealing with mental illness and who hasn’t been (can’t be) famous at the lower athletic levels, the sport was probably therapy as much as career.Report
It is and it isn’t.
Her success as a tennis player is largely independent of her fame. The only way they’re really connected is that her fame and the money it has brought her likely helped her access and pay for better coaching and training. But she’d have been phenomenal at the sport regardless.
But her success as a professional athlete — her ability to not just make money but to literally be the highest paid female athlete in a single year ever — is predicated on her fame. The tournaments can’t pay her five to six figures just to play and seven figures to win if no one wants to watch them.Report
Women’s tennis is an oddity among sports. Fan turnout is driven by beauty, fame, and rank, in basically that order. Not saying that fact justifies anything, but it functions more like the ice capades than a hockey game.Report
I think the more athletes and actors balk at the dog and pony show press engagements, the better our sports and arts will be.Report
There’s never a compelling reason to talk to a professional athlete before, during, or after a competition. Nothing they say is going to be worthwhile. Save it for “30 For 30” or a long-form documentary.Report
Or coaches. Except Popovich.
“How did the Lakers beat you tonight?”
“They played better than we did.”
“Why did your team have so much trouble defending LeBron?”
“He’s Lebron James. <slowly> Le-Bron-James. <normal>Where have you been living for the last decade?”
“What adjustments will you make?”
“Even if I knew that already, do you think I’d tell you now?”
I understand that some of the reporters are afraid to ask him questions.Report