Osaka on French Open interviews: No comment

I’d guess the US Open accommodates whatever request she has, and the American sports media either defends said accommodations, or remains respectfully neutral.

 

I’d be fine with the “sick days” idea if there was a stipulation that a sick day couldn’t be used after a loss and everyone was notified in advance that a player wasn’t talking to the media that day. (Maybe a player could release a statement or answer a few questions from a pool reporter if they wanted to use a “sick day” to get out of a press conference after a win.) I think that’s fair.

 

Again: Nothing to do with the media. Osaka does media. She writes essays. She guest edits magazines. She does doc voice-overs. This is a clearly bright, capable writer/thinker/speaker who does not want to be told, by a tournament or a tour, what to do. And now she's come up with a reform the tour platform, the major news organizations that tend to get celebrity interviews will support it. Because they're going to get what they want anyway - they're getting what they want anyway now. The loser in this will be the reporter from some paper in some European city or some American city that doesn't have the celebrity backstage pass to ask a question, and, for some reason or another, there will be a large media contingent that says "good. They didn't deserve to ask a question anyway." And while that stance would have baffled me, say, 10 years ago, it doesn't now.

 

I know many of the tour players are tight with each other, but does somebody try to use this to get a psychological edge on her? Is that considered an unpardonable breach in that world or is it fair game along the lines of stealing second off a catcher with the yips?

 

Jesus, you'd think Osaka is guarding the cure to cancer by not speaking postt-match.

 

Nothing to do with that. This is some true honest-to-Zeus snowflake shit, especially given the side hustles with photoshoots and the like.

 

Has one million followers on Twitter, doesn't want to do media. Fuck outta here.

 

Get used to it.

 

So we are all denied her bon mots after being asked "tell us about the second set...." or "You are often compared to the Williams sisters. Maybe it’s because you’re black." BFD.

 

Good for her.

 

She's got more balls than all you guys on your best day. These complaints are some weak sauce.

 

This isn't about her balls, or my balls, or any of our balls. The shit she's seeing on social media is infinitely worse and longer-lasting than anything she'll get in a dumbass scrum. I'm no dummy (18 years worth of posts here to the contrary). Of course this is the wave of the future and of course she's far from alone in this (just the most accomplished person doing it). Doesn't mean she can't be full of shit about talking about the stresses of talking to the big bad media while racking up followers on the most toxic of social media cesspools.