Two years ago, in his way through Mutua Madrid Open, Naomi Osaka dropped, without anyone given too much importance, he missed when tennis was simply a game, which feared to lose too soon the taste for competition.
I had already two of its four titles of the Grand Slam, it was the first of the ranking and had amazed the world with its Zen attitude, calibrating its heart rate while Serena Williams undertook with Carlos Ramos, Judge of Chair at the final of the State Open
United 2018.
In that pre-tournament appearance, in the magic box, a 21-year-old girl was very timer and uncomfortable before the journalists, forced to a task that was far from her liking.
The conquest of the second open of Australia and a new US Open and consolidation as one of the great athletes of our time did nothing but aggravate their tendency to introversion, until the famous abandonment at the last Roland Garros for refusing to a
Press conference, with the consequent fine of 15,000 euros.
Osaka stepped aside, resigned to play Wimbledon and reappeared in the Olympic Games as a carrier of the torch at the opening ceremony before being eliminated in eighth.
In Cincinnati again against journalists, via zoom, as the pandemic imposes, the Japanese broke down shortly after Paul Daugherty, from Cincinnati Enquirer, asked himself, despite not feeling comfortable with the media, he took advantage of his
Media projection for other interests beyond tennis and about how you could combine both.
“Since I was younger, the media has been very interested for me because of my baggage and my way of playing, I can not help some things I tweeted, because I think that I can help, generate repercussion. But I would also say
I’m not sure how to balance it, I’d say I’m trying to find out, just like you. ”
It was then, while the player covered her face with her visor before the first sketch of crying, when the moderator interrupted the press conference, which would resume a few minutes later.
The agent of the player, Stuart Duguid, reproached the journalist’s attitude.
“The discussion is the example of why the relationships between players and media are so tense at this time. Everyone in that zoom will agree that their tone was wrong and its sole purpose was to intimidate. A really atrocious behavior.”
As a Haitian father and Japanese mother, the number two of the world commented after it will donate the profits in this tournament to help the victims of the new earthquake in Haiti.
Since he arrived at the elite, Osaka has been characterized by his commitment and social activism.
Precisely, in Cincinnati, a year ago, he led a boycott who forced the suspension of a day of the tournament, as protest by Jacob Blake’s murder at the hands of the police.
Shortly after, at the US Open, he appeared in each of him with the name of a recent victim of racism inscribed in his mask.
