So the French Open is set to begin in a little over 24 hours as I write this. I am currently sitting on my couch watching Bara v Frech battle to gain a spot in the main draw. I have never seen Bara play or even heard of her but she is quite feisty. Frech is also a fighter but she really does not have much with which to hurt her opponent. I also watched this morning American Hailey Baptiste make her way into the main draw with a struggle win over Grabher who stands so far back to receive serve she was literally standing where the lines people are located.
So the draw is out and of course there are the usual hand wringing. I am not about that this year.
One of the upsides to finally having a platform that features exclusive women's tennis is the ability to see a whole host of players that you would normally never get to watch. As a result I have been bingeing on some really fun players and I thought that I would focus more on these for this year's French Open. Forgive me if you have already heard about them but here are my list of Floaters and Wildcards that you should keep an eye on. They are hungry and looking to make their mark:
Paula Badosa
Maria Osorio Serrano
Tamira Zidansek
Veronika Kudermetova
Jill Teichmann
Nadia Podoroska
Ana Konjuh
I am sure that there are more out there and as the tournament starts there may be more women who will make themselves known.
Press Conference Controversy
So Naomi Osaka has decided that she is not going to do any press during this year's French Open. I am of 2 minds on this so bear with me. On the one hand I am assuming that professional athletes have some sort of obligation to do press either before or during tournaments. I suspect that this assumption while not written in stone is something that everyone is aware of. On the one hand it provides visibility to the sport and the tournament as it allows sports journalist to have access to the players and write stories so that us fans who cannot be there have some idea of what is going on in the minds of said players on particular topics.
This assumption has not always benefitted fans as some of the stories that are written by journalists leave a lot to be desired. In addition to this there are times when the questions to players leave fans wanting to wipe the floor with journalists. The questions and assumptions are sometimes intrusive and lack empathy especially when a player is going through challenging situations with their games or their off court issues. See Venus at Wimbledon when she was dealing with the fatal motor vehicle accident.
As far as Ms. Osaka's stance that for her mental health she is not doing any press, I can empathise with her and the stance that she has taken. Many of us struggle daily with the mental aspect of our jobs. We find it challenging to get up and go to work every day and we struggle to cope with the demands that are being made on us by our bosses. It does not help that currently Ms. Osaka and many others not only have to deal with the mental struggle of being a professional athlete traveling the world, but doing so in the middle of a pandemic. I cannot imagine how arduous that can be. I don't think a lot of persons have realised just how challenging this must be for athletes, and especially those who are travelling with children. You not only have to protect yourself and your family, but you are also ensuring that the team that travels with you are also protected. That is a lot of responsibility to be placed on the shoulders of an athlete and then you have to go out there and put out your best effort. I can therefore see why Ms. Osaka felt that the best thing to do was to cut some of the extraneous stuff from her schedule and she believes that appearing before the press to discuss her performance was not something she wanted to subject herself to, at least not at this tournament.
The press corps, and some fans have taken it upon themselves to condemn Ms. Osaka's stance. They have actually made her point with their ready takes and have not looked at the reason why she felt the need to take this stance. I reminded myself this morning that the press corps that usually does the French Open are the same ones who had press conference transcripts embargoed so that they could write their think pieces and skew the answers given by players and then have the players derided by fans because of comments which have been taken out of context. We talk all the time about misinformation and fake news in politics but it also happens in sport, and most of the egregious things that have been written about athletes have mostly been done by the press corps covering the French Open.
Fans can usually view in real time press conferences in real time from the AO, USO and Wimbledon and transcripts are provided in a relatively short space of time.
Ms. Osaka is the highest paid female athlete. She has a fantastic marketing team behind her and I am sure that her many sponsors are not killing themselves because of her stance of no press conferences. Perhaps what the media should do is try and find some way to engage with Ms. Osaka on mental health issues and how they affect athletes. It would be great to have the sport's athletes who are competing give their views on playing in a pandemic. The challenges that they face. We don't all need to listen to Benoit Paire spout off about the slavery of tennis in a pandemic.
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