Osaka on French Open interviews: No comment

Despite my feelings on this, I think it's fair to note this from Jack Nicklaus, who I would argue is the most media-friendly athlete in any sport, and his defense of Osaka:
Nicklaus On Osaka — Geoff Shackelford

JACK NICKLAUS: Anxiety? Well, if she has that and that's, and that bothers her, I mean, then you guys should be able to, you know, accommodate her and allow her to do what she needs to do without running her through the ringer. I mean, if she has a problem, if she really has one, you don't know that, I don't know that, only she knows that and her doctor probably knows it.

So I can't fault her ...

 

OK. But that's not up to the media. It's up to her sport/tournament/WTA to determine.

 

How about they just broadcast some god damn tennis? I mean, there's pretty much *always* a match going on. If players want to do a presser after their match, go ahead and let them, otherwise, plenty of other things to be shown. (This is a bigger problem in gymnastics, which I've noticed because my wife is a fan - NBC will just follow Simone Biles with a camera at all times and show her for half the broadcast, even as people are actively performing behind her, but plenty of tennis coverage on the networks isn't actually showing tennis.) My suspicion is also that most players would still want to do press, because they've got shit to sell or want to draw sponsorships, and you're going to cut out the players who don't have anything interesting to say anyway.

 

Osaka made mistakes in handling this, too. As far as we know, she never went to the WTA privately or quietly to address her issues, instead just deciding, on her own that she wasn't going to do press conferences, and, especially at a Grand Slam tournament, that isn't going to go over well, particularly with a top player involved.

Perhaps if she had done something else, the WTA might have done something else -- limited the time frame of her pressers, limited the number of people she spoke to at a time, assured her that she could be the one in control of the interviews, thus deciding and saying what she would and would not address, etc. Or, as I suggested earlier, she could have been honest and open and let the chips fall where they may; they probably would have fallen right into line and it actually would have brought a pretty positive result for all involved.

It didn't have to be "Do this, or don't, and you have to leave."

 

That’s gonna trigger ‘yab, alright.

 

Are tennis writers the giant asshats these two
ladies are making them out to be? I’m sincerely asking since I don’t follow this sport at all.

 

It actually isn't, and she knew those rules going in.

 

I was kind of curious about that myself, and stumbled on this site, which has transcripts from a bunch of press conferences. She gets some stupid questions at most of her pressers, but that's not "unusual" for those. Looking at the one she did after losing in 2019, it's slightly adversarial, but not intensely so.

 

I think the tennis media got more adversarial when tennis players of either gender became absolute divas and agents and tournament officials would interrupt a reporter with the phrase, "tennis questions only," and frequently wouldn't allow follow-ups. It goes back to one of the Jack Nicklaus quotes from Tuesday. He said he treated the media fairly because they treated him fairly. But he also added the caveat that he didn't have to deal with the media of today (which includes social media, bloggers, web sites) when he was actively competing.