Naomi Osaka has decided to back out of this year’s French Open. The Japanese tennis star made this announcement a few months after winning her fourth Grand Slam at this year’s Australian Open. Osaka announced this on her social media and cited her depleting mental health as the primary reason she decided to back out of the tournament.
Osaka explained in her social media statement that she decided to back out of the tournament to protect her failing mental health. “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,” Osaka mentioned in a recent social media statement.
“I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly. The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.”
Osaka referred to the 2018 US Open final against the US prodigy Serena Williams. Williams received three code violations in the match and went on to level allegations of sexism against the match official. The local US crowd at Arthur Ashe wasn’t pleased at how Serena was treated and Naomi’s first Grand Slam win was dealt with boos from the crowd.
Earlier, organizers from the four Grand Slams had given Naomi Osaka a strict warning for refusing to attend media obligations after her matches.
“We have advised Naomi Osaka that should she continue to ignore her media obligations during the tournament, she would be exposing herself to possible further Code of Conduct infringement consequences,” organizers from the four Grand Slam tournaments mentioned in a joint statement.
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