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Naomi Osaka is right to choose ‘disobedience’ after Grand Slams drop the ball on player wellbeing

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Haji Mohamed Dawjee is a South African columnist, disruptor of the peace and the author of Sorry, Not Sorry: Experiences of a Brown Woman in a White South Africa. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram: @sage_of_absurd

Naomi Osaka’s decision is grounded in her anxiety and mental health, which she says she has struggled with since her first US Open win.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

Prior to this year’s French Open, four-time Grand Slam winner Naomi Osaka announced that she would not fulfil her press conference obligations at the tournament. Her statement sparked an onslaught of backlash and, although it was bold of her to challenge a system that often breaks down the spirit of tennis players post-match, her attempt at working towards a more supportive structure fell on deaf and unsympathetic ears.

Osaka’s decision is grounded in her anxiety and mental health, which she says she has struggled with since her first US Open win. Her eyes are often downcast, her voice trembles worse than a Kardashian’s when she tries to talk about food, and she hides her about-to-flow-over tears under her visor.

Players are fined at Grand Slams when they refuse to do pressers. Many of the top players can afford the $15,000 penalty. They let it go and get on with the show.

Osaka was fined at the French Open. She could afford it. What she could not afford, however, was the backlash.

Osaka’s public statements pre- and post-Open may seem bold and outspoken. Surely we are entitled to access their lives even when the questions are ignorant, daft and downright offensive? Fault. They do not owe us answers to daft questions – like when Simona Halep was asked whether her breast reduction improved her game, or when Rafael Nadal was asked whether being a newlywed might affect his game. Double fault. But the press cannot be stopped from being gigantic ignoramuses with IQs the size of a freshly spawned amoeba. Osaka chose to care for herself in the face of carelessness. And I fully support it.

Osaka is, of course, not the first player to face emotional fatigue and mental strain when fielding questions from the press.

In February this year, Serena Williams abruptly left the press room when she was questioned about her retirement after an early exit at the Australian Open. Up until that question, the greatest of all time served up a masterclass in emotional intelligence. And, ironically, she was emotionally intelligent enough to walk away.

In 2018, she cut a hack reporter down to size – and, just to be clear, that size is tiny – when she was asked at a post-match French Open conference about doping rumours.

Of course, no one could believe that Williams, cited as the greatest athlete of all time, with a career spanning more than 23 years, could still be so good. Or, post-birth, move at all. Surely the only place left for her is in the kitchen baking tennis ball cookies instead of hitting them, right? Or she’s on drugs.

Before the reporter could finish her sentence, which she cravenly muttered under her breath, Williams gathered herself and then reeled the reporter in: “Excuse me, can you talk louder so that everyone can hear you asking me about my drugs?” I could think of no better way to shut that rubbish down and I watched with great pride.

Williams, one of the most decorated athletes of all time, is tested for drugs up to five times more than other players. Even though the testing is invasive and unfair, she has never refused a test or to answer any questions about tests and doping. But her last straw came in 2018 and the last straw took 23 years – at the time – to break the camel’s back. Twenty-three years – the very same age Osaka is today.

Instead of stopping at the fine, Grand Slam tournaments applied so much pressure that Osaka was forced to choose between “disobedience” and discomfort.

She chose disobedience.

Instead of respecting her mental health, she has been shut down with the grandest of slams – even after writing a personal letter to the organisers of the French Open to ask for support and open channels of discourse. As a result, even though she sailed through the first round, Osaka dropped out of the tournament while Grand Slams dropped the ball on the wellbeing of players.

We would like new balls, please. And by balls, I mean rules. And by rules, I mean more intelligent people to manage the situation. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.

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Comments - Please in order to comment.

  • JP van der Merwe says:

    What a absolute load of nonsense. It is quite simple, Osaka et al must merely return the portion of their price money generated by the exposure by news media’s after which she are quite entitled to go and take a hot batch immediately after the game.

    What on earth has poor Serina’s “invasive and unfair” testing has to do with the point of this article.

    Typical woke-nonsense does not give you the right to waste space here.

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