Cincinnati (United States) (AFP)
Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, world number two and four-time Grand Slam winner, broke down in tears for her first press conference on the WTA Tour since May on Monday at the Cincinnati tournament.
Osaka, 23, had given up on Roland Garros after his victory in the first round and then skipped Wimbledon to settle his anxiety problems, a decision that had sparked controversy but won the support of different personalities.
"This is something I needed to do for myself. Initially I stayed at home for a few weeks and was embarrassed to go out because I didn't know if people would look at me differently," Osaka explained at its first press conference, in traditional format, since the Rome tournament in the spring.
“The revelation for me was to go to the Olympics, when the athletes came to me to tell me that they were very happy with what I had done,” she continued.
Osaka, whose father is Haitian, announced last week that it wanted to offer all of the earnings it will receive during the Cincinnati tournament to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.
This press conference preceded his entry into the tournament.
Later, at the same conference, she broke down in tears over another question.
At the end of July, Osaka had estimated that "the format of press conferences is outdated and should be reviewed", in a column for Time magazine: "I think we can improve it, make it more interesting and more enjoyable for everyone. world, ”she wrote.
"My intention was not to launch a call for revolt, but rather to have a critical point of view on the way of working and to ask what it is possible to do better", she justified herself since. .
At the Tokyo Olympics, American gymnastics superstar Simone Biles, multi-medalist, also publicly indicated that she wanted to take care of her mental health, citing too much pressure to handle.
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