Naomi Osaka will not play in
Wimbledon this month but will
compete at the Tokyo Olympics, her agent said on Thursday.
اضافة اعلان
Osaka’s agent, Stuart Duguid, confirmed that she would skip the
grass-court Grand Slam tournament that begins on June 28 but would play at
theOlympics, scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8.
Duguid said in a statement: “Naomi won’t be playing Wimbledon
this year. She is taking some personal time with friends and family. She will
be ready for the Olympics and is excited to play in front of her home fans.”
Osaka, the world’s No. 2 player who competes for Japan but lives
in the United States, withdrew from the French Open last month before the second
round after being fined $15,000 for skipping mandatory post-match news
conferences.
When she withdrew in Paris, Osaka announced on Instagram and
Twitter that she would “take some time away from the court.”
She explained that she had experienced “long bouts of depression”
since winning the 2018 US Open and often had “huge waves of anxiety” before
speaking to the news media.
Before the French Open, she had announced on social media that
she would not speak with the media during the tournament to protect her mental
health and to avoid questions that might make her doubt herself. The Grand Slam
rules require players to give a post-match news conference if requested and
when Osaka skipped her news conference after her first-round victory, she was
fined by tournament officials and warned of further fines and potential
expulsion from the tournament if she continued to break the rules.
She chose to withdraw instead. “I never wanted to be a
distraction, and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could
have been clearer,” she wrote in her announcement.
But she also called for consultation with the tour to “discuss
ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans.”
Sally Bolton, Wimbledon’s chief executive, told the BBC on
Thursday that Wimbledon officials had communicated with Osaka’s team in “the
last few weeks” and that the tournament was reviewing its media policies in
consultation with “not just the players, but the media and all those engaged in
that space.”
As in Paris and most other tournaments in recent months, news
conferences and one-on-one interviews will be virtual during Wimbledon because
of pandemic restrictions.
Osaka, 23, has won four Grand Slam singles titles, all on hard
courts. She has had limited success at Wimbledon, reaching the third round in
2017 and 2018 and losing in the first round in 2019. The tournament was
canceled in 2020 because of the coronavirus.
Osaka’s career grass-court record in singles is 11-9, a
significant contrast with her career hard court record of 119-51.
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