Naomi Osaka Says She Won’t Talk to Journalists at the French Open

The French Open takes place on clay, which is considered Osaka’s worst surface. She is not expected to win the tournament and could be upset in an early round. She has never made it past the third round in Paris.

Attending a news conference, regardless of the outcome of a match, is considered an obligation tennis players fulfill to promote their sport, which has struggled to maintain coverage in some markets in recent years as the budgets of news organizations have been slashed.

Billie Jean King, the Hall of Fame player who helped create the women’s pro tour, has spoken about visiting the sports editors in the markets in which she played to beg them to send sportswriters to cover matches during the tour’s early years and the importance of players speaking with the press to promote the sport.

“I like writers,” King said during a recent interview. “Always have.”

Osaka’s announcement comes three months after Serena Williams left a news conference in tears following a loss at the Australian Open. Williams left the podium following an innocuous question from a veteran Australian tennis journalist about her level of play and her unforced errors after a semifinal loss to Osaka, who later won the tournament.

“I don’t know. I’m done,” Williams said before abruptly leaving the room.

It is not clear whether Osaka will also refuse to do television interviews on the court after her matches. Those interviews have become a staple of Grand Slam play and are generally not confrontational. Except in the finals, only the winner of the match is interviewed for television on the court.

The question now is whether any players will follow Osaka’s lead and whether tennis officials will accede to her pressure and change the requirements.

Osaka is one of the most influential players in the world. Last year, tennis officials suspended play at the Western Southern Open, a United States Open tuneup, after Osaka announced that she would default her semifinal match to draw attention to the issue of police violence against Black people following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/sports/tennis/naomi-osaka-french-open-no-interviews.html