Naomi Osaka Lost to Marketa Vondrousova and is Out of the Olympics

Osaka arrived after causing upheaval in the tennis world, and intensified the discussion around athletes and mental health, when she withdrew from the French Open and skipped Wimbledon as well after her refusal to endure what she called the stress of mandatory news conferences at tennis events, especially at Grand Slam tournaments.

She revealed that she has struggled with depression since 2018, and said she is uncomfortable in the sometimes adversarial public setting of news conferences. She quit the tournament after organizers threatened to disqualify her if she did not meet her press obligations.

During the fracas, Osaka’s sister, Mari, a recently retired professional tennis player, said in a Reddit post that she later deleted that Osaka’s decision to skip news conferences was part of a strategy to avoid discussing her difficulties playing on clay, the surface used at the French Open.

To the public, it was unclear for a while when Osaka would play again, even with the Olympics coming. Few knew that she had been asked in March to light the Olympic flame and skipping the tournament was extremely unlikely given the magnitude of that honor.

So in mid-June she announced she would skip Wimbledon, which is contested on grass, but would return to competition at the Tokyo Games.

She was born in Japan and chose to represent the country in international competition in 2019. Osaka’s mother is Japanese and her father is Haitian. She was raised largely in the United States. The Olympic tournament is also played on a hard court, the surface on which Osaka has had the most success.

On Friday night, joined a short list of illustrious Olympic flame lighters, including Muhammad Ali and Wayne Gretzky.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/27/sports/olympics/naomi-osaka-lost-vondrousova.html