PARIS—Tennis star Naomi Osaka says she is not going to speak to the media during the upcoming French Open.
The world’s highest-earning female athlete wrote in a Twitter post Wednesday that she hopes the “considerable amount that I get fined for this will go towards a mental health charity.”
The French Open is scheduled to begin Sunday in Paris. Osaka heads into the clay-court tournament ranked No. 2 in the world.
The 23-year-old Osaka, who was born in Japan and now is based in the United States, has won four Grand Slam titles. That includes last year’s US Open and the Australian Open this February.
“I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes mental health and this very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one,” wrote Osaka, who was selected as the AP Female Athlete of the Year in 2020.
“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.
Osaka added: “I’ve watched many clips of athletes breaking down after a loss in the press room and I know you have as well. I believe that whole situation is kicking a person while they’re down and I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.”
She later posted a video clip of Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch’s famous “I’m just here so I don’t get fined” appearance at a Super Bowl media day.
Tennis players are required to attend post-match news conferences at major tournaments if members of the media ask them to.
Meanwhile, like many a 20-year-old American in Paris for the first time, tennis pro Jenson Brooksby is excited about where he is and eager to see where he’s headed.
Brooksby, who’s from Sacramento, California, has been tearing up the lower-level Association of Tennis Professionals Challenger Tour—19-2 record, youngest US player to accumulate three titles in one season on that circuit in 15 years, ranking rose from 315th in February to 163rd on Monday—and now he’s looking for more.
Not just this week, but in the years to come. Asked where he sees himself a decade from now, Brooksby did not hesitate a bit.
“I mean, by then, I want to be No. 1 in the world. I believe I can do it. It’s a long road. It takes a lot of, obviously, a lot of hard work, a lot of discipline getting better. But I believe I’m very motivated enough to do that,” he said in an interview with The Associated Press conducted via Zoom. “And by then, even five, 10 years, or before—I mean, I don’t want put limits on it, my goals—I definitely want to be the best player in the world.”
This is what competitiveness and confidence sound like. It’s also evidence that having had a taste, albeit a brief one, of the uppermost echelon of a sport can do for someone who is trying to make it big one day.
Qualifying for the French Open began Monday; play in the main draw starts next Sunday. Players whose rankings weren’t high enough to get direct entry into the Grand Slam bracket can earn their way in through the three rounds of qualifying—essentially a tournament before the tournament.
Every so often, someone who does work his or her way into the main event uses that momentum as a springboard for serious success.
At the 2020 French Open, for example, 20-year-old American Sebastian Korda went from qualifying to the fourth round before losing to eventual champion Rafael Nadal; 23-year-old Argentine Nadia Podoroska took that route all the way to the semifinals before losing to eventual champion Iga Swiatek. At this year’s Australian Open, 27-year-old Russian Aslan Karatsev qualified and got to the semifinals before losing to—yes, that’s right—eventual champion Novak Djokovic.
Brooksby—known as “JT” to those closest to him, because his middle name is Taylor—played in only one Grand Slam tournament as a junior, the 2018 US Open.
But he stood in the spotlight at age 18 in New York the following year: Brooksby won three matches in qualifying to book a spot in the main draw, then beat 2010 Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych.
Image courtesy of AP
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