Editor’s note: The following article is an editorial and the views expressed are the author’s own. read more opinion At Griot.
Before Simone Biles became a hero for withdrawing from the Olympics and prioritizing her mental health, Naomi Osaka became a hero for doing the same. In 2021, Osaka will participate in the French Open and announced on Instagram that she will not hold a post-match press conference, even though it is mandatory for players and they will be fined if they do not attend. Her social anxiety caused her to be under too much stress, she wrote on Instagram, adding that she felt a “huge wave of anxiety” before giving the press conference, so she held the press conference to protect her mental health. She wrote that she had to quit.
She wrote on Instagram: “We often sit there and get asked questions that we’ve been asked many times before, or questions that make us question our minds. But I’m not going to expose myself to people who doubt me.”
It was an amazing moment. The highest-paid female athlete in history and one of the most famous players in professional tennis has refused to appear in the media, citing her mental health. It sparked a lot of conversation and brought a lot of awareness to the importance of mental health. But there’s a larger story about what happened that makes the moment even more powerful. A new biography by veteran tennis journalist Ben Rosenberg, Naomi Osaka: A Journey to Find Her Power and Voice, provides a lot of interesting background about what Osaka did and why she did it.
When Osaka announced that she would no longer hold press conferences, it came as a shock to the media members she spoke to at the press conferences. That’s because Osaka has long been considered one of the best players at press conferences. . Rothenberg takes us to her first press conference, which took place when she was 16 years old, and we see why.
Osaka had already been playing in professional tournaments for two years, but after she won against a higher-ranked player in a tournament in California, the media wanted to get to know her, so they asked her to come to the media center and speak to a group. .
The reporter asked, “How would you rank that win in your career?”
sports
she said: First of all, the first time I defeated her sister. Because when I looked at your face, I thought, “Yes.” ”
The reporter was like, “What?” Is the family victory greater than this?
Osaka: “You know, every day I feel like, “I won!”
You should know that Osaka’s sister Mari, who is two years older, grew up with Naomi, practiced on the court every day, and is trying to become a professional. Mari achieved that, but her highest ranking was 280. When they were in their early teens, Mari dominated all practice matches with Naomi. And then one day, when Naomi was 15 or 16, I can’t remember which one anymore, she started hitting Mari at her practice. I was excited about that too, but this wasn’t trash talk in the car. Naomi was dunking on her sister in front of the media. It was unexpected, funny and real, and showed how comfortable she was at her first press conference. she was joking.
“Press conferences rarely call for criticism, but Naomi received rave reviews and the assembled press gushed about her on social media,” Rothenberg wrote. He recalled one longtime tennis reporter saying, “Naomi Osaka completely crushed her first press conference.”
To understand what really happened there, you have to go back to your childhood in Osaka. Rothenberg said Osaka did not attend school in person for many years throughout her childhood, which meant she had little interaction with anyone other than her parents and her older sister during several years of her youth. It says that it is. At a time when most of her colleagues were honing her social skills, she was working all day, holed up on the tennis court. She played her first professional tournament on the day she turned 14, so by that age she had to cram in just how much tennis she had to become the best player in the world. You can imagine it.
Ms. Osaka had little experience interacting with people, so she was very shy. One-on-one interactions were very valuable to her. However, her press conferences quickly became the stuff of legend. Rothenberg writes: “Naomi felt most relaxed and light on the podium…The formal structure of the press conference, which followed a clear question-and-answer pattern and had very few awkward silences, made Naomi feel at ease and honest. I was able to express my feelings,” almost without restraint. ” Osaka told him, “When you’re talking one-on-one with someone, it just adds up to your stress. If I tell a joke in the press room, there’s a 50-50 chance that at least three people will laugh.” If it’s one-on-one and the person doesn’t laugh, I just want to walk away.”
So what happened between 16-year-old Osaka becoming more aggressive about press conferences and 24-year-old Osaka refusing to do so? There are several reasons, but one of the central ones is that the coronavirus has changed things. During the quarantine, reporters stayed home and Zoomed with the players. This meant that many new reporters could attend many press conferences, and Osaka felt that these new reporters did not have the same goals as tennis-specific media. She felt like they were trying to bring something negative out of her, which caused her to become extremely stressed with the press personnel. She also began to question why she had to do it.
Rosenberg writes about a panel discussion in New York that featured Osaka and legendary player Billie Jean King. Osaka said he felt obligated to speak to the media and began asking himself why. “I know it’s about growing the sport, but I feel like at some point it’s a privilege to talk to us and some people abuse that privilege,” King said. This was opposed because it was the media that brought enough attention to a sport that could be of great benefit to athletes. So she asked if Ms. Osaka owed much of her income to the media. She was clearly ungrateful.
In the end, she ended up going back to the press conference, but it was tough for her. At her first press conference upon her return, she cried.
Years later, Osaka told Rothenberg that she actually enjoyed giving press conferences, which became part of the problem. “Sometimes I say things in the press room that I shouldn’t say…but that’s because I like journalists.”
To learn more about the fascinating life of one of the greatest tennis players of our time and a global genius of a black father, read Naomi Osaka, Ben Rothenberg’s great new biography.
Touré is the host and creative director of theGrio. He is the host of GrioTV’s Masters of the Game. He is also the host and creator of the documentary “Being Black: The ’80s,” his podcast, and the animated show “Star Stories with Toure,” which can be found at TheGrio.com/starstories. He is also the host of the podcast “Toure Show” and the podcast documentary series “Who Was Prince?” He is the author of eight of his books, including the Prince biography Nothing Compares 2 U and the e-book The Ivy League Counterfeiter.
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