The grand slams say Naomi Osaka’s decisions about press are ‘injurious’ to tennis. Perhaps they should look closer to home
Amazing, really, that the most appalling people in tennis are not the ones who applaud piously when the Wimbledon umpire tells the crowd to ensure their mobile phones are switched to silent, nor even the ones who are far more hysterically enchanted by the appearance of a pigeon on Centre Court then they ever could be by an otherworldly Roger Federer forehand.
Much more ghastly are those simply unable to deal with world No 2 Naomi Osaka announcing last week that she didn’t feel mentally up to doing press conferences at the French Open. This drew frothing anger from all the usual suspects, including the only highly paid news anchor in history so fragile that he recently stormed off air on his own show. The French Open fined Osaka for missing her first-round press conferences, and the official Roland Garros Twitter account posted (then later deleted) a collage of players doing press conferences with the leadenly pointed caption: “They understood the assignment.” On Monday, Osaka announced that she would be pulling out of the entire tournament , revealing she had had long bouts of depression since winning the US Open in 2018, and had often struggled to cope.
Related: French Open’s response to Naomi Osaka is a shameful moment for tennis
Related: We’re not the good guys: Osaka shows up problems of press conferences | Jonathan Liew