Leading figures in tennis and sport have rallied to support Naomi Osaka after the women’s world number two withdrew from the French Open in a row about post-match media duties, saying she had been suffering from “depression” and “anxiety”.
One of the biggest names in sport, Osaka stunned the tennis world when she pulled out of the Grand Slam after being fined and threatened with expulsion for refusing to show up at an obligatory news conference on Sunday.
The four-times Grand Slam champion had signalled her intentions to skip her media duties to protect her mental well-being on social media and returned to Twitter on Monday to announce her withdrawal.
“I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can go back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris,” she wrote. While her original stance had earned little backing from her fellow professionals, most of whom saying that dealing with the media was part of the job, her withdrawal triggered a wave of support from around the sporting world.
