Me, ten minutes after reading Naomi Osaka's tweet about ruling out press conferences at the French Open:
"This feels like too much. Her press conferences are usually pretty boring anyway."
Twenty minutes later: "Not allowing journalists access is pretty dangerous ground to stand on. I hope she's thought this through ..."
Twenty-two minutes later: "Social media is much worse for mental health, amirite?"
Thirty-two minutes later: "How many times, Naf, have you said yourself how wild it is to have to answer for a match immediately after playing it?"
Thirty-five minutes: *Remembers when Rennae Stubbs asked Osaka about which dead black person's name she would wear on her mask in her next match and winces*
One hour: "Maybe this will force the media to actually work to write their stories. How many times do they ask stupid questions, get a stupid/weird/confusing answers and turned it into a viral headline on Twitter?"
Social media really is a cesspool, but if you can use it as a tool to bypass a process that is damaging to your mental health, then I'm with Don Draper:
Meaning, "here, fine me! I can afford it!"
I didn't get here right away. I'm being honest -- that was my process. But what made me take a step back from my perspective as a journalist was this line: "We've ... been asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me."
I mean, this is 100 percent 2021 energy, first of all. But second of all, she's not wrong. The crazy part is that the journalists don't even mean to do this most of the time. Many of them are asking questions off the top of their heads, making observations based on their limited knowledge of the sport and its strategies. The stories that come out of press conferences aren't about how Osaka beat someone like, say, Serena Williams. It's about the drama around them. The truth is that sports journalists in general get away with a lot of laziness. They use these press conferences for a nugget they can use to carry a whole story instead of being a student of the game and using that knowledge to write compelling stories. I swear, I haven't seen a damn thing about Phil Mickelson winning the PGA Championship on Twitter, but I have seen Brooks Koepka rolling his eyes at some dude I've never heard of. That's what I mean. Viral, but lazy. I have said this for years: If tennis writers actually wrote about tennis and not about the random stuff said in post-match conferences, there would be more tennis fans.
I assume Osaka is not bypassing all media interviews. I bet she'll sit down with the reporters she knows who do the work. And let me be clear, I am all about drama in tennis, but not at the expense of someone's wellbeing. So I'm about this new policy and would like to give props to Venus Williams for starting it all a couple years ago.
Side note: I'm sitting here trying to think of anyone who has done so much with her status as a top-tier player, things no one asked her to do, things that could change the game for the best. I don't think that I would have ever seen a "Black Lives Matter" sign on a tennis court in this country if Osaka hadn't said something. Why would the tennis powers that be have done that without prompting? Osaka has come to the conclusion that not everyone is going to like what she does, so she might as well follow her heart. It usually takes most people a lifetime to figure that out.
Tennis with Notions!
Hi, I found my dress-in-progress! I, uh, had forgotten that I had to do some recutting. But at least I'll have something to multitask with during the French Open! (Draws coming!)
