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Osaka withdrew from the French Open earlier this year after
being punished for refusing to do media conferences, saying her
mental health was adversely impacted by certain lines of
questioning.
On Monday, a reporter from a Cincinnati newspaper asked the
23-year-old: “You're not crazy about dealing with us, especially
in this format. Yet you have a lot of outside interests that are
served by having a media platform. How do you balance the two?”
Osaka twice asked the reporter to clarify his question and
turned down an offer from the moderator to ”move on to the next
question” before giving a full reply.
"Ever since I was younger, I have had a lot of media interest on
me, and I think it's because of my background as well," said
Osaka, who is of Japanese-Haitian heritage but grew up mainly in
the United States.
"I can't really help that there are some things that I tweet or
some things that I say that kind of create a lot of news
articles or things like that ... but I would also say I'm not
really sure how to balance the two. Like I'm figuring it out at
the same time as you are, I would say."
When another reporter began to ask about her preparations for
the summer hard-court season and her pledge to donate her prize
money from this week’s Western & Southern Open to Haitian
earthquake relief efforts, Osaka appeared to wipe away tears.
The moderator called for a pause to the proceedings and Osaka
left the room for a few minutes but returned to complete the
news conference.
Osaka’s French Open withdrawal not only led to her revealing
that she has struggled to cope with depression for a number of
years but it also prompted her to pull out from Roland Garros
and Wimbledon for the sake of her mental well-being.
After losing early at the Tokyo Games, where she was given the
honour of lighting the Olympic flame at the opening ceremony,
she said she struggled to cope with the huge pressure and
expectation placed on her.
Osaka's agent, Stuart Duguid, condemned the reporter's line of
questioning on Monday in a statement provided to Reuters.
"The bully at the Cincinnati Enquirer is the epitome of why
player/media relations are so fraught right now," said Duguid.
"Everyone on that Zoom will agree that his tone was all wrong
and his sole purpose was to intimidate. Really appalling
behaviour.
"And this insinuation that Naomi owes her off-court success to
the media is a myth – don't be so self-indulgent."
The reporter did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Osaka has used her platform to call attention to mental health
issues and she said at the news conference she felt supported by
her fellow athletes.
"The biggest eye opener was going to the Olympics and having
other athletes come up to me and say they were really glad that
I did what I did," she added.
"I'm proud of what I did and I think that it was something that
needed to be done."
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Los Angeles, Additional reporting
by Amy Tennery, editing by Pritha Sarkar/Peter Rutherford)
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