Naomi Osaka withdraws from French Open

[Anonymous]

I can’t help but think the treatment of Osaka is a tinged with misogyny. NBA player LeBron James suffers no repercussions for walking way from games while they are going on, leaving the court without congratulating the winning team, or cheating by flopping but a top woman athlete is expected to ignore her mental health and be forced to attend something that makes her uncomfortable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t help but think the treatment of Osaka is a tinged with misogyny. NBA player LeBron James suffers no repercussions for walking way from games while they are going on, leaving the court without congratulating the winning team, or cheating by flopping but a top woman athlete is expected to ignore her mental health and be forced to attend something that makes her uncomfortable.

Here's LeBron's post game interview after his game 6 loss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOdqwpZkXTM None of the other stuff you mentioned is required by NBA player contracts

[Anonymous]

I thought this was a great take on how Osaka was treated.


https://deadspin.com/naomi-osaka-was-bullied-out-of-the-french-open-1847007451

[Anonymous]

I think she got bad advice. Someone told her to take some sort of stand and she would be admired. It was bad advice. You need to do press and it is part of the sport and if you cannot participate in that aspect then not a good idea to be a professional athlete. A better move would have been to do press and if she doesn't like a question, then glare down the reporter. I have seen that done really well. Also a dramatic walk out can be done but to flat out try and control a tournament ..no. This also took away attention from other athletes and the tournament is larger than her. I would have respected her getting mad after the Serena thing and that was really justified but not now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought this was a great take on how Osaka was treated.


https://deadspin.com/naomi-osaka-was-bullied-out-of-the-french-open-1847007451

deadspin survived all of their editors, writers, and respected contributors quitting? Who knew

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think she got bad advice. Someone told her to take some sort of stand and she would be admired. It was bad advice. You need to do press and it is part of the sport and if you cannot participate in that aspect then not a good idea to be a professional athlete. A better move would have been to do press and if she doesn't like a question, then glare down the reporter. I have seen that done really well. Also a dramatic walk out can be done but to flat out try and control a tournament ..no. This also took away attention from other athletes and the tournament is larger than her. I would have respected her getting mad after the Serena thing and that was really justified but not now.

I thought I read that several members of her team were taken by surprise as well so I'm not sure if she was operating on anyone's advice. Skipping a press conference after a hard loss is not unheard of, she may have been better off just doing that since she was unlikely to go far in the tournament anyway. Part of the problem with the pre-emptive announcement was that it didn't really explain what was going on (contrary to her withdrawal post), she refused to talk to the tour organizers when they reached out, and her sister made the situation worse with her reddit post.

This is not to say that tournament officials handled it well either, they should have stuck with the advertised fines and revised the consequences after this FO was over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Quite frankly, assuming she hasn’t done anything crazy to deplete her winnings and has a decent financial advisor, she can retire today and live a very comfortable life. I am assuming that those of you who are critical of her actions this week don’t have kids. If my DD took this stance I would be incredibly proud of her.

If you read her posts, she also indicated that she would be available for interviews after the tournament. Why does anyone need more than that?!

I’d tell my daughter to suck it up

+1. It’s the job! Most people don’t get to pick and choose which parts of our jobs we are up for doing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think she got bad advice. Someone told her to take some sort of stand and she would be admired. It was bad advice. You need to do press and it is part of the sport and if you cannot participate in that aspect then not a good idea to be a professional athlete. A better move would have been to do press and if she doesn't like a question, then glare down the reporter. I have seen that done really well. Also a dramatic walk out can be done but to flat out try and control a tournament ..no. This also took away attention from other athletes and the tournament is larger than her. I would have respected her getting mad after the Serena thing and that was really justified but not now.

You clearly didn't pay attention to her explanation for her decision, because this is totally off base.

[Anonymous]

Now she’s literally whining and crying because journalists ask her questions she doesn’t like.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/naomi-osaka-breaks-down-in-tears-following-appalling-reporter-question/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Now she’s literally whining and crying because journalists ask her questions she doesn’t like.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/naomi-osaka-breaks-down-in-tears-following-appalling-reporter-question/

Why didn’t you come on here and make snide remarks about her when she said she would donate all of here winnings to Haiti? You’re not a fan, you’re the the kind of person looking to instigate. Clearly Naomi must still be in somewhat of a fragile state. Seems like she’s doing her best. She came back to answer questions after regaining her composure.

Get a life and find someone else to pick on. This young lady is struggling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now she’s literally whining and crying because journalists ask her questions she doesn’t like.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/naomi-osaka-breaks-down-in-tears-following-appalling-reporter-question/

Why didn’t you come on here and make snide remarks about her when she said she would donate all of here winnings to Haiti? You’re not a fan, you’re the the kind of person looking to instigate. Clearly Naomi must still be in somewhat of a fragile state. Seems like she’s doing her best. She came back to answer questions after regaining her composure.

Get a life and find someone else to pick on. This young lady is struggling.

If she is feeling very fragile, she can always just hang out in her mansions away from the public eye. No one is forcing her to try to play tennis.

[Anonymous]

I feel badly for her, but I wish she weren’t so fragile. I don’t think the reporter’s question was out of line. It kinda makes me wonder what else is going on.

I think she’d be better off avoiding social media altogether. I suspect some of what she’s reading there is getting under her skin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now she’s literally whining and crying because journalists ask her questions she doesn’t like.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/naomi-osaka-breaks-down-in-tears-following-appalling-reporter-question/

Why didn’t you come on here and make snide remarks about her when she said she would donate all of here winnings to Haiti? You’re not a fan, you’re the the kind of person looking to instigate. Clearly Naomi must still be in somewhat of a fragile state. Seems like she’s doing her best. She came back to answer questions after regaining her composure.

Get a life and find someone else to pick on. This young lady is struggling.

If she is feeling very fragile, she can always just hang out in her mansions away from the public eye. No one is forcing her to try to play tennis.

You sound super jealous that you don't have a mansion to hang out in. SAD!

[Anonymous]

Has anyone heard the audio of the question? The words themselves seem fair enough, was there something in the tone that he used? I think you can appreciate the fact that Naomi is struggling right now, while also wondering what is so triggering about the same media that she used to her full advantage at last year’s US Open when she wore face masks with different names to bring attention to the inequalities in our justice system and relied on the media asking about them to get her point across. It’s really hard to understand the dichotomy here. She used the media expertly last year as a platform for things that are important to her, but now says her media obligations have damaged her mental health. I want to sympathize but I really have a lot of trouble understanding what is going on with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone heard the audio of the question? The words themselves seem fair enough, was there something in the tone that he used? I think you can appreciate the fact that Naomi is struggling right now, while also wondering what is so triggering about the same media that she used to her full advantage at last year’s US Open when she wore face masks with different names to bring attention to the inequalities in our justice system and relied on the media asking about them to get her point across. It’s really hard to understand the dichotomy here. She used the media expertly last year as a platform for things that are important to her, but now says her media obligations have damaged her mental health. I want to sympathize but I really have a lot of trouble understanding what is going on with her.

I heard the audio. There was no bullying tone. The question was asked in a very straightforward manner, both the first time and when asked to repeat it.

I heard the audio before I saw her agent's statement. It was the agent's statement that was out of line and completely mischaracterized the exchange.