In a move that caught many by surprise Naomi Osaka announced that she was . "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," she said in a statement released on social media.
This comes after last week, when Osaka made that the tennis world hadn’t seen before, especially from a professional athlete who was at the top of their game. In a post on social media she said she wouldn’t be taking questions from the press during the Open as it put an undue amount of pressure on her.
“I've often felt that people have no regard for athletes mental health and this rings true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one.” Osaka wrote. "However, if the organisations think they can just keep saying, 'do press or you are going to be fined', and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are at the centrepiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh."
The that occurred as a result of Osaka's announcement to not attend press conferences, was immediate. Many said that doing press along with playing matches was part and parcel of life as a professional athlete.
The French Open fined Osaka $15,000 USD and there was of her being thrown out of the tournament altogether if she continued to boycott her post-match press conferences.
“Anger is a lack of understanding. Change makes people uncomfortable.” Osaka , seemingly in response and then a few hours later, taking matters into her own hands, quit the French Open.
Professional athlete or not, Osaka seems to be putting her mental health first, and that is what's making "people uncomfortable."
Osaka has never appeared relaxed around the media. As her agent : "Everyone was always putting pressure on me to get Naomi media-trained. I always thought that would be a mistake for her. That’s the last thing we want to contrive."
She has also previously spoken out about , which means the pressure of being thrust into the limelight as she has been, could have taken a toll. Then there was the time she broke down in tears in a post-match press conference after a first round loss in Wimbledon back in 2019.
While professional athletes are required to do a certain amount of media as part of their job, we are living in a time when people’s mental health is more important than ever before.
COVID-19 especially reminded the world how crucial it is to look after your own thoughts and emotions. And that the whole adage to grin and bear it, no longer applied.
We are entering an era where mental health issues are no longer spoken of in hushed tones and considered to be something only experienced by a small minority. The fact is, nearly half of all Australians aged 16–85 have experienced a .
It's this era that Prince Harry brought up when he spoke about his own mental health in the docuseries The Me You Can't See he co-created and produced with Oprah Winfrey.
“Pre-Covid, there was probably a situation of an ‘us and them’ when it came to mental illness,” . “And now I think it’s just ‘us’. The world has experienced the same thing but in a different way and a unique circumstance.” He also spoke about using alcohol to cope with his mental health struggles and how he now was turning to to work through the trauma of his mother’s untimely death.
Prince Harry opening up about his own struggles lead to from within and outside Royal circles as well as the media.
For many, having a Royal openly speak about their mental health is something they had never encountered before. It’s the same when it comes to seeing an athlete at the top of their field taking a stand for their mental wellbeing. Both these people are taking action to protect themselves and more than that, their speaking out about their own mental health hopefully inspires others to do the same.
The more famous people talk about their own struggles in an open and public manner, the more it shows everyone else that talking about mental health is nothing to be ashamed about.
At the moment, people like Prince Harry and Naomi Osaka are acting as trailblazers in industries where keeping quiet about your personal life has been the norm. But they are showing us that silence doesn’t help if you are struggling with keeping check of how you’re feeling. There is no shame in taking steps to protect yourself, especially if your mental health is at stake.
