Four-time Grand Slam tennis star Naomi Osaka was fined $15,000 for refusing to speak with reporters following her first round win at the French Open. Osaka announced on social media that she would not partake in press conferences at the tournament citing mental health concerns.» Subscribe to MSNBC:
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Osaka Fined $15K at French Open For Not Speaking With Media
Sports rules about speech are crazy. Criticize the refs to press, you get fined, don’t talk to press, you get fined
Playing at a professional level is a gift. Every athlete knows what they’re getting into. Respect for the press, refs, umpires etc should be expected by any professional athlete. We all have or need structure and rules.
I totally understand the anxiety of not dealing with journalists, they could maybe come to a compromise, ?
No!! Being a professional tennis player has rules. If you can’t abide by them then you shouldn’t play.
No press conferences after each match win or lose is part and parcel of competing in these tournaments. That said, I get her thinking because reporters in these conferences tend BS questions
PEACE, FREE THINKING, SAFETY, JOY LOVE ONE ANOTHER, PROSPERITY, BONANZA, SOBRIETY, GOOD HEALTH, OPTIMISM
Imagine if Serena did this.
@Lynn Schmitt LOL
ANY player who does this gets the same treatment. Stop turning this into something it’s not
@Lynn Schmitt WOW! Tennis is JUST a game. Her mental health is more important. At east she showed up and WON!!! What do you CARE if she didn’t feel like saying a few words that you’d have already forgotten??? You MUST be a America to have such a big belly button.. Or just a selfish person.
@TheJimprez professional sports is also a business.
@TheJimprez so ironic to call someone selfish whilst defending Naomi one of the most selfish pretentious players in history 🤦♂️😂
How can one be fined for NOT speaking? Who has the power to compel speech? What in the actual…?!!
@Karagol 6 , You didn’t explain in a comprehensible way. Translate your lazy gibberish.
Oh, the contract? There is a HUGE medical section….but their Dr.’s. That part would end up in court, and “tennis” knows that. Go after her now (“who does she think she is!”) taint the jury pool.
Seriously, it’s about MONEY.
@Tizzy P 1st part, right on. Second part, dream on. ONLY if the “country” has a direct financial interest. (The minister of sports needs a new limo. Nike is dragging their heels, so you better win…or else.)
Very Nazi/Stalin/Putin/Un IMHO. I hate this on principle. No one should be forced to speak. NO one. Ever.
@Karagol 6: The original comment here was “How can one be fined for NOT speaking? Who has the power to compel speech?”. THAT is what he was disagreeing with….the fact that the league CAN fine her in the first place.
That is SO WRONG!! Good for her for standing up to this BS!!
No.. she’ll be ejected from this tournament and she should be. You can’t change the rules to accommodate.
@Lynn Schmitt January 6th Insurrection.
She is in jeopardy of losing ranking and points if she defaults.
Only sensible thing one can do with professional sports is boycotting it! It is governed by racism, misogyny and aggressive disregard for the athletes! There are positive exceptions to this, but they are exceptions none the less!
You obviously know nothing about professional tennis
@Harvey Manfredsenjenson Yea, you don’t. Every sport still thinks it’s the 50’s. Tennis is actually one of the worst, as it’s a “rich old boys/gentlemens country club” sport. That’s why even white guys like McEnroe and Agassi were so reviled for being rebellious and not displaying “proper” etiquette.
I played tennis semi-professionally for a bit in the ’00s and one reason I quit (didn’t need the money, didn’t care about the potential fame; not that I was ever going to be one of the greats, but I did well for my level and did have a bit of a name) was because of the way I saw PoC and women being treated by the tennis establishment. I naively thought that changed in the 70’s and 80’s or at least 90’s. Nope. Stuffy old man’s club.
I know tennis since the time of Björn Borg and Jimmy Connors. (That’s the generation before Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, Michael Stich) As to the question of knowledge: I specified “professional sport” as worthy of boycott. You question knowledge about a subject while you haven’t even identified correctly the subject of the first sentence in my comment.
@boredgrass This is a story about professional TENNIS. Try to stay on topic
Why not just interview the coach?
ALL players in EVERY major have press conferences after EVERY match win or lose
And players are forbidden to be coached during matches, so the coach wouldn’t have the same insights into the match that the player would
PEACE, FREE THINKING, SAFETY, JOY LOVE ONE ANOTHER, PROSPERITY, BONANZA, SOBRIETY, GOOD HEALTH, OPTIMISM
Everyone in women’s tennis should stand behind her and refuse to play
Oh, come on…don’t be so obtuse…
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Go Naomi!!!!!
People that don’t suffer from emotional conditions can’t even start to understand how depression and anxiety affects the human body. Here’s a very young lady that I aware of her situation and is asking for some space so she can keep her head in the game so she can move from game to game. Maybe in a couple of days she’ll feel better and be able to tackle dealing with the pressure of the press. This is unbelievable specially on May, that’s mental awareness month. I wish you the best Miss Osaka
my personal suspicion is that the source of any mental health issues that she might suffer are from things that she is doing outside of tennis. she has a lot on her plate and probably needs to make some priority decisions about what she does, and does, not want to do. the underlying basis for her off-court pursuits is from what she is doing on the tennis court, so she might want to use that as a guide in her prioritizing efforts. a lot of this is just a matter of maturity. people mature at different rates and in different ways so everyone has just got to find their lane. naomi is clearly still finding her lane. i think naomi made a bad decision in this case, but everyone makes mistakes. ultimately, this is one of those “live and learn” situations.
She’s acting like a diva. If her mental health issues are so bad, she can skip the tournament. There are plenty every year
PEACE, FREE THINKING, SAFETY, JOY LOVE ONE ANOTHER, PROSPERITY, BONANZA, SOBRIETY, GOOD HEALTH, OPTIMISM
I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. There are so many with bloated egos that will gladly fill her on air time. This is strong arm tactics that have no place in sports. All about the money.
He literally makes money from media outlets and endorsements. Tennis is a business as much as anything else and it’s her job. Sometimes in jobs we do things we don’t want to. Absolute cry baby
I respect the value of a free press but how does the press lose any clout or rights by letting Naomi protect herself from post-game analysis? She’s not asking to carry a gun; she’s asking not to be subjected to questioning designed to plant anxiety. By the way, I can’t imagine stations defending Serena if she bypassed media, as she clearly sometimes wanted to do.
The French Open tournaments are basically treating Naomi Osaka like dog racers treat their greyhounds: cruel, inhumane, and disgusting.
Well done Naomi…I LOVE this!
Just do a Marshawn Lynch new press interview- “Thank you for coming” to every question
Putting pressure like that on her when she clearly says that she’s dealing with mental health issues… money makes you inhuman 🤮
How bad is her mental health? She has no problem doing other media interviews and playing tennis and travelling the world? She just Dosent like the media simple as. Never been a more pretentious tennis player in history
Pull a Matshawn Lynch “here so I don’t get fined “ save 15k
Osaka: The MSM is detrimental to my mental well being.
French open: Yeah, we know. We don’t care.
good for Her!!! I fully support her decision.
hope she starts getting stiffer penalties! its part of your JOB osaka, do it, or dont play! so tired of these little baby athletes.
French Open can go grand slam themselves.