Naomi Osaka Quits the French Open
The New York Times
The four-time Grand Slam winner was fined after refusing to appear at a news conference. She wrote on Instagram that she had suffered from bouts of depression since 2018.
PARIS — Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open one day after officials threatened to expel her from the season’s second Grand Slam tournament if she continued to refuse to attend news conferences after her matches. The move was a dramatic turn in the high-stakes standoff between the most powerful officials in tennis and Osaka, the world’s highest paid female athlete and a generational star who has quickly evolved into the most magnetic new figure in the sport. “I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being 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 that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” Osaka wrote on Instagram. “More importantly I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly. 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.”More Related News