The treatment following her win against Serena Williams in 2018 was cruel. Naomi Osaka says that her anxiety and depression began with that cruel treatment, and it’s not hard to understand why she would have felt that way.
“I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” she added. “The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.” She did not indicate when she would return to tournament play.
After winning her first match in the French Open, Osaka failed to appear for the post-match press conference. She was fined $15,000 and then all hell broke loose. She withdrew from the grand slam tournament.
The move was a dramatic turn in the high-stakes standoff between the most powerful officials in tennis and Ms. Osaka. The player, 23, is not only the world’s highest-paid female athlete but also a generational star who has quickly become the most magnetic figure in tennis.
That she’s a star tennis player isn’t in doubt, and she’s enjoying the financial benefits that come along with success. What about the press conference? Not being a sports lawyer, I’m unfamiliar with the contractual terms that go along with being a professional tennis player, but it seems fairly obvious that one term is that players appear at post-match press conferences. Is that too much to ask?
Ms. Osaka described herself in her Monday Instagram post as an introverted person who suffers from anxiety before she has to speak with the press. “Anyone that has seen me at the tournaments will notice that I’m often wearing headphones as that helps dull my social anxiety,” she wrote.
She said reporters had never been unkind to her, but “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.”
It’s unclear what this means, exactly. Has Osaka been diagnosed with clinical anxiety and depression, or does she just feel “vulnerable” in front of the media? While it’s impolite to raise such questions these days, as some would argue that it trivializes and stigmatizes mental illness, the fact remains that many people without mental illness would prefer not to be put in the spotlight and challenged by reporters asking unpleasant questions.
Ms. Osaka’s sister, Mari, a former professional tennis player, indicated that Naomi Osaka’s anxiety was caused in part by her struggles to win on clay courts like the one at the French Open. The press asks about her sister’s poor performance every time she plays on clay, which hurts her, Mari Osaka said in a post on Reddit.
By avoiding news conferences, her sister could “block everything out. No talking to people who is going to put doubt in her mind.”
It would hardly be surprising for a world-class athlete to want to “block everything out” that would undermine focus and confidence in order to play one’s best, but that’s not the same as mental illness. It’s also not a level playing field for the other athletes who honor their contractual commitments.
Sofia Kenin, the player of the year on the women’s tour in 2020, said she respected Ms. Osaka’s decision, and acknowledged that the pressures of being a young star are intense.
“This is what you signed up for,” Ms. Kenin said. “This is sport. There’s expectations from the outside, sponsors and everyone. You just have to somehow manage it.”
Osaka called the press conferences “outdated.” Tour officials disagree. Does each player get to make her own rules to suit her own comfort level? If Osaka suffers from mental illness, should she not be entitled to accommodation? But what if an accommodation gives her an advantage over her competitors, who don’t want to be criticized at press conferences either and have their confidence undermined? Notwithstanding empathy toward people who suffer anxiety and depression, does their illness mean they shouldn’t be held to their contractual duties, just as anyone else?
*Tuesday Talk rules apply.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
The first objective of the competitive athlete is to win.
If objective number two, promotion of a sport, gets in the way of objective number one, then that’s a problem.
If #2 significantly hinders #1 then #2 has to go.
What good is succeeding at #2 if it causes you to fail at #1?
Cheating would make #1 easier too. Would buying off a line judge be okay?
And if #2 is a condition of being allowed to succeed at #1, do contractual obligations magically disappear? Is it that simple that you only have to do what’s good for you to win and screw everything else?
For amateur sport, maybe, but at a professional level, you can’t really extricate one from the other.
That might be true for the athlete, but for the league that affords the athlete the opportunity to win by organizing the matches/games (and giving the athletes a lot of money in exchange for playing), they have to make money, and that includes demanding the athletes themselves promote the games, the league, and the players. Unless it’s Vince McMahon, nobody wants to see the suits promoting the league and engaging in PR, people want the players
The first objective of the competitive athlete is to get paid. If objective number two, winning, gets in the way of objective number one, then that’s a problem.
If #2 significantly hinders #1 then #2 has to go.
What good is succeeding at #2 if it causes you to fail at #1?
The first objective of the competitive athlete is to get paid.
This is most definitely not true. Very few athletes make any real money. Go out to any local road race, high school varsity game or pick-up anything, and you will see athletes busting their hump for nothing but the love of the sport and the glory of winning and, if it is an organized event, perhaps a trinket for landing on the podium.
I used the word “competitive” for a reason. Sport and promotion are different things. And in the Naomi Osaka case, that line has been blurred.
Is there a difference if the word “competitive” was replaced with professional, as in “show me the money”?
Yes. Professionals have contracts while competitive is vastly more broad and usually without.
If there is a contract provision (discussed generally but I’ve never seen the wording) that would rule what is.
And Osaka puts the issue of what (likely) is, up against what it ought to be.
The pure sport fan/athlete wants to see who can run the fastest from here to there. Nothing more.
Maybe Osaka will change professional sports by returning it to is purity. Maybe not.
Money (and promotion) obviously corrupts it all if it forces people to do things off the playing field.
The professionalizing of the Olympics is a strong indicator she will not prevail.
Much as I appreciate your concern for the purity of sports, and agree about the Olympics, pro sports is necessarily a business, which is how, inter alia, a 23-year-old amasses a not insignificant bank account from winning. If you want purity, eliminate pro sports. If you want money, accept the premise that there are requirements that go along with the paycheck.
Is this what the future of sport “ought to be”? Perhaps, as long as you’re good with the trade-off that pro tennis will pay as much as pro fencing. At least the tennis matches are (as far as we know) entirely legit and fair for all competitors, even if the obligations go beyond hitting a ball over a net at great velocity. To the extent there’s a purity point involved, it would seem far more favorable to the rest of the competitors who suffer the promotion necessary to get the public and networks to pay the money they ultimately make than to alleviate Osaka’s personal issues while her competition has to fulfill their obligations and suffer otherwise fair questions from the media.
The question isn’t whether anxiety and depression are real and devastating, but whether one can make millions without fulfilling the duties that everyone else has to endure because it is, at bottom, pro sports.
(Your software doesn’t allow me to respond directly to you, so this is next best.)
It isn’t that I think Osaka should be granted the special privilege of not talking to the press while others must, but rather, that none should be compelled. The reason:
Most sports try hard to create objective criteria to measure an event, be it the stopwatch or yardstick. Many sports try to eliminate any subjectivity using video replays (or as in tennis) the computer simulation showing the ball in/out. Objective measurement is the Holy Grail of sports.
Some subjectivity necessarily remains, such as what is a football penalty or basketball foul. But they certainly try their best to cut out whatever errors they reasonably can.
With the requirement of an interview (leaving aside contracts issues, as I write for what should be, not what is) a sport introduces off-the-field additional emotional criteria. Some athletes may like it, and it doesn’t bother them, some may hate it, and it affects their game.
But by requiring it — by adding additional subjective criteria to an event, such as emotional capacity to withstand a wholly unnecessary press interview — the sport does something contrary to its goal of objectively measuring the event. The stress of competition is inherent to a sport. The stress of an interview is not.
Is money a good enough reason to alter a sport to add subjective off-the-field pressures to an event that ought to be measured objectively?
Pro sports seems to think so (I would assume this exists in other sports), despite it being contrary to the essence of the game.
But that “more and more” attitude to money may also be why many people can’t afford to go to the games.
/fin
It’s still a business. That’s where the money comes from. That’s what makes it pro. That’s just as much a part of the deal of pro sports as winning a match.
You keep ignoring this part. They can’t.
Just pay the fine and move on. Consider a tax for being a great tennis player or something.
It seems like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
But….If there is an actual diagnosis I would change my opinion. My ex-wife had a terrible anxiety disorder. It was diagnosed by an actual doctor. They can be no joke and terribly debilitating.
There was a threat of disqualification from this and other tournaments if she kept skipping, so it’s not quite as simple as paying the fine. I don’t know if there were specific circumstances that would trigger a DQ, or if it was discretionary.
Nevertheless, I largely agree with you that if there’s an actual diagnosis, some accommodation should probably be made. But what? To Scott’s earlier point, suppose her anxiety is related to her difficulties on clay courts – should she be allowed to alleviate that anxiety with on-court coaching that other players aren’t entitled to? That’s just cheating, right?
More to the specific points cited when talking about her unwillingness to do a press conference, she said that reporters asking her questions about why it’s so hard for her on clay put doubt in her mind. So? Does she think the reporters left Roger Federer alone regarding clay? Or John McEnroe?
Also, she DID speak to a reporter after her win – on the court, in a live interview in front of fans. Sure, those are lovely softball questions. But to me it shows that it’s not so much the press, as the press asking questions she doesn’t like and make her nervous.
It was a fine this time, but the penalty would have been more severe had it recurred.
But you also raise a taboo subject, whether one can question the bona fides of a claim of mental illness. While anxiety and depression are very real mental illnesses, is it permissible to question someone who claims to suffer from them? Is it mental illness or just “the blues” or normal discomfort?
I really wish she had tried to negotiate an accommodation instead of just no showing and quitting.
I work in community mental health, and I see this pattern replicated all the time. People encounter a mental health difficulty that interfere with their job, and instead of starting the process of getting an accommodation, or even just talking with their boss about it, they just quit, with all the life altering consequences it entails.
Is getting a little anxious or nervous before playing in a professional sporting event really a “mental health difficulty?”
I am sorry I missed the part about future punishment if she does it again. Tennis in any form is not a sport I give any time to.
But yes, the Tennis overlords should demand an official diagnosis. If anyone else needs accommodations at work or school documentation needs to be provided. This is a job, I would think it shouldn’t be any different. The sport has made her famous and rich I guess? This would seem to be a small price to pay for all that.
Are we allowed to say “Suck it up Buttercup” anymore?
Mental health is difficult, because the criteria for an official diagnosis are not as cut-and-dried as physical medical diagnoses like for an ACL tear. Osaka and her associates could look up the DSM definition of depression and/or anxiety, read the symptoms, then go to any old therapist and say “I am feeling down”, “sometimes I just can’t focus”, “this has been going on for a while”, and so on, and get diagnosed by that particular therapist for depression.
Professional tennis likely has its own doctors that the players are required to go to (the NFL, NBA, do, can’t see why tennis wouldn’t), so maybe they have their own psychiatrists or clinical psychologists that they would demand Osaka go to so she can’t just buy a diagnosis from whoever she chooses. However, Osaka would probably object to any diagnosis by the league’s therapists as ethically conflicted.
Short of her being involuntarily committed, maybe “Suck it up Buttercup” is the most objective rule.
So many questions.
What sort of accommodations would be reasonable? [Short basketball players get what? Golfers who mentally choke in the 4th round get what?]
What is the effect on the Tennis business (sport entertainment) of accommodation? [Did the LPGA collapse due to the domination by Asians?]
Is it a sign of success or failure that people are talking about the mental stresses involved in a 23 year old obtaining a net worth of ~ $50 million?
And the most important question, can i seek an accommodation to minimize disparagement of my comments by the proprietor?
No.
“I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”
Press conferences are, for better or worse, part of being a professional athlete playing in a professional league. And that is why elite athletes often find ways to deal with press conferences. Some, like Marshawn Lynch, treat it like experimental theatre. Others, like Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins, try to be the most boring and generic interview possible by repeating standard bromides about it being a team effort and having to work hard (or, if you lose, work harder).
It is a skill like any other, and while it is tangential to playing professional tennis, it is something Osaka will need to learn to deal with if she wants to continue being a professional tennis player. Media coverage of pro sports is a fundamental part of attracting viewership and, with it, sponsorship dollars, so removing or making optional the post-match interview seems unlikely, at least in the short term.
This was my exact thought.
The fictional but scary Hyman Roth knew enough to pick his battles and get past it. “And I said to myself, this is the business we’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!“ Good advice in any profession.
I’m missing something here. To be able to compete at that level, the level of mental toughness that has been calloused on the way to the WTA or ATP has to be top-notch. The top 100 players all play like elites, but it’s the few crucial points in the match that make the difference between a number 82 and a top 10. A number 1 like Osaka? They’re close to being mind jedis.
They’re quipped with years of mental resilience, yet they can’t field a few questions from reporters, some of which are complete hacks, after the match? In the end, however, it’s a business, and I will love to see how the WTA handles this one. The people at the French Open should’ve been more cynical and conniving by pretending to show more compassion and understanding. Instead, they looked like insensitive assholes (which they probably are, like many good business people, but that’s besides the point).
A cynical mind like mine sees this as Osaka utilizing the proverbial escape hatch of these times: “your words hurt, they’re offensive, and I should be accommodated. Everything and everyone, and their bottom line, be damned.” Or maybe there really is a diagnosis that prevents her from answering a few trite questions before being driven to the 5-star hotel to charge her batteries for the next match. If that is the case, then I may be the callous one here.
So there is no EU or French law commensurate to the Americans With Disabilities Act?
Now I know who Naomi Osaka is and somehow we’re all talking about her. While I may not be an expert in sports law, I am an expert in the cost of marketing. $15k was a bargain.
The rest of us already knew who she was, Jake, just like you know who the star forwards playing for the Portland Antifa.
Good for ‘the rest of you’ tennis fans who represent a statistical blip in the greater pool of sportsball fandom in America. The point is, being the highest-paid tennis player is cool and all, but if someone who doesn’t care about tennis knows who you are that’s the type of fame that sells sneakers…An arena where the competition includes celebrities from any category of sports and some from outside the sports world who are recognized by billions of other people and will be over a period of decades, not days. Call me cynical but achieving that level of fame and influence doesn’t happen by accident.
Years ago, comedian Dave Chappelle, in the midst of a very successful career, suddenly disappeared from public view. He was overwhelmed, he felt like he was losing himself, that he needed to walk away, for his own sanity. So he did. He left, he kept himself, he listened to that voice of sanity and moderation. I greatly respect him for that.
Now, Ms. Osaka is still very young, by my lights. I’m sure she’s already made plenty of money. So while I appreciate the importance of honoring contracts, walking away is a very real option. The public will find new heroes, and with them new sources of controversy, but she will only ever have her one life to live. 23 with lots of money is a pretty good position from which to choose a new career.
But it is a choice. Stay and play by the rules, or go and forge a new path. Don’t expect others to bend over backwards to shield you from the downsides of your own choices.
The option of walking away is always available to her, but the issue arises because she wants to play.
“Half of this game is 90% mental” – Yogi Berra
Really, I think Kenin has it right–the press conferences, whatever you think of them (and what I think of them is pretty well summed up in Axis of Awesome’s song “Man of the Match”), go with the territory. If you can’t handle them, then you aren’t cut out for the (professional) sport, any more than if you can’t consistently return a serve.
Not cut out for the sport? [If this real; often can’t tell with people on this planet).]:
“Petra Kvitova, the No. 12 player in the world, announced Tuesday that she was withdrawing from the French Open following an ankle injury she says she suffered during her “post-match press requirements.””
You don’t trust people to state honestly anything about their mental health but you also don’t trust anyone to actually diagnose and treat a mental health disorder. What is it that you want, Pops? A litmus test that doesn’t exist? To feel superior because you felt sad that one time and got over it? I really don’t know. What principle are you valiantly defending here? Tough nuggies because everyone feels sad and anxious sometimes?
The lady hits a ball with a racket good and doesn’t like to talk to the press. She should be able to hit a ball good and not talk to the press. If she agreed to talk to the press, she should talk to the press. If she agreed and doesn’t want to anymore, she should accept the consequences of her breach as the penalty for her noncompliance. Not talking to the press is something she should negotiate in the future. The mental health aspect of the case is just an excuse for you to repeat your archaic sentiments about depression and anxiety. Get over it and let’s get to the part where the ladies hit a ball with rackets over a net back and forth.
She hits a ball good. Who the fuck really cares what she has to say?
How long have you been hearing these voices in your head?
As long as the spice melange has been flowing. Being the Kwisatz Haderach is a trip.
Please stop being such a jerk about mental illness. Go beat up a kid in a wheelchair instead if you need vulnerable prey. You’re making me expose my caring side and it’s uncomfortable.
If you take mental illness seriously, as I do, then you should be just as concerned about it being abused as it occurring. The more serious a problem is, the more closely it needs to be guarded from being turned into a sham excuse.
I’m too sensitive to the stigma against seeking help to be unbiased here. I also know too many people who have taken their own lives to be anything but. There are too many others like them that I don’t know and many, many more we might be able to prevent from doing something irreversible. Successful athletes are not immune to the disease. I see what you’re at now and don’t mind it so much, but be careful you don’t lose the forest for the trees.
Thanks for clarifying.
Osaka’s problem seems to be that she wants to live her life free of any kind of negative emotions. She gets a little nervous before she plays a game in front of thousands of live fans and millions on TV? Who wouldn’t? Hard to have much sympathy for someone who earned $55 million in the last year. If she has a genuine mental disorder, she also has the money to get it treated, or retire.
If her issues arose after the debacle with Serena in 2018, that had little to do with the press and more with the ridiculous idolization of Serena by New Yorkers. She should absolutely talk to someone about that and send the bill to Serena.