Sports are becoming more attuned to mental health, but as the turmoil over Naomi Osaka’s departure from the French Open shows, there’s still a long way to go, writes jasongay
On the matter of Naomi Osaka and the French Open: I suspect a day will come when people will look back upon this moment and be mystified by how agitated it all got, how a player opting out of routine press conferences andbecause of concern about her own mental health became such a global uproar.
By acknowledging her depression and social anxiety, and stepping away, Osaka is taking action, Pappas says. “She’s taking measures to treat her mental health like someone would treat their physical health,” she says. Eventually, Pappas would come to view her mental health like she would any physical setback—that it was treatable and nothing to be ashamed of, and could heal, too. Now she shares that message with organizations like the Pentagon, which recently asked Pappas to speak to U.S. soldiers.
Pro tennis, an occupation rife with early burnout, ought to be especially attuned to mental health. The sport is such a grinding pressure cooker—players are removed at an early age from families and ordinary childhoods and thrust into global competition in adolescence or even before. Osaka, who is 23, has had spectacular financial and on-court success—she, too, appears to have it all—but depression and anxiety doesn’t work like that. It’s not linear.
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