Naomi Osaka Quits the French Open
The four-time Grand Slam winner was fined after refusing to appear at a news conference. She wrote on Instagram that she had suffered from bouts of depression since 2018.
May 31, 2021
Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
PARIS — Naomi Osaka dropped out of the French Open one day after officials threatened to expel her from the season’s second Grand Slam tournament if she continued to refuse to attend news conferences after her matches.
The move was a dramatic turn in the high-stakes standoff between the most powerful officials in tennis and Osaka, the world’s highest paid female athlete and a generational star who has quickly evolved into the most magnetic new figure in the sport.
“I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris. I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer,” Osaka wrote on Instagram. “More importantly I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly. The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018 and I have had a really hard time coping with that.”
Never before has such a consequential star exited an event as big as the French Open over something that nearly every top tennis player has said in recent days is as much a part of being on the tour as lengthy travel schedules. The clash also stood in stark contrast to last summer, when tennis officials suspended play at the Western & Southern Open after Osaka announced she would not play her semifinal match to draw attention to the issue of police violence against Black people following the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis.
The suspension of play, a move that several sports undertook as athletes threatened a boycott, allowed Osaka to remain in the tournament. She won her postponed semifinal match and then defaulted the final because of an injury.
Last Wednesday, seemingly with little warning to any tennis officials, Osaka posted on Instagram and Twitter her decision to skip all press obligations during the French Open because the experience harms the mental health of players, especially when they have to answer questions following a defeat.
“If the organizations think they can keep saying, ‘do press or you’re going to get fined,’ and continue to ignore the mental health of the athletes that are the centerpiece of their cooperation then I just gotta laugh,” Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam tournament winner, wrote. She said she would accept any fines levied against her for skipping the news conferences and requested that the funds be donated to a charity dedicated to mental health.
In her statement on Monday, Osaka wrote that she “gets huge waves of anxiety” before speaking to the media.
“So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” she wrote. “I announced it preemptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that. I wrote privately to the tournament apologizing and saying that I would be more than happy to speak with them after the tournament as the Slams are intense.”
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Players are subject to fines of up to $20,000 for skipping a news conference, though the fines have historically been far less. Still, tour officials and most players have long believed that news conferences, though uncomfortable at times, are important for the promotion of the sport.
After learning of Osaka’s decision, the WTA Tour said Friday it welcomed a dialogue with her about mental health but stood by its position on press obligations for players. “Professional athletes have a responsibility to their sport and their fans to speak to the media surrounding their competition, allowing them the opportunity to share their perspective and tell their story,” the WTA said.
Osaka gave an on-court interview but did not do a news conference after her first-round match.
Osaka gave an on-court interview but did not do a news conference after her first-round match.Pete Kiehart for The New York Times
Osaka, however, refused to bend, even as several other major players, including the No. 3 men’s player Rafael Nadal and No. 1 women’s player Ashleigh Barty, said they disagreed with Osaka and that speaking to the news media was part of the job. Osaka, who made more than $50 million last year in endorsements and prize money, did not appear for a media day news conference and skipped a news conference after her first-round win over Patricia Maria Tig on Sunday in straight sets.
Osaka did take three questions from an on-court interviewer, Fabrice Santoro, after the match and a few more queries on her way off the court from Wowow, the Japanese broadcaster with which she is under contract.
Within hours she was fined $15,000 by the French Open tournament referee. In addition, the leaders of the four Grand Slam tournaments — the Australian, French and United States Opens and Wimbledon — warned that she risked harsher penalties, including being defaulted from the tournament, if she continued not to fulfill her media obligations.
In the statement, signed by Jayne Hrdlicka, the head of Tennis Australia; Gilles Moretton, president of the France Tennis Federation; Ian Hewitt, the chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis Club; and Mike McNulty, chairman of the United States Tennis Association; the officials said they had reached out to Osaka to open a discussion about both her well being and concerns she had about news conferences and mental health.
Osaka, they said, refused to engage with them, leaving them with no choice but to pursue significant penalties to help ensure that Osaka did not gain an advantage over her competitors.
“We want to underline that rules are in place to ensure all players are treated exactly the same, no matter their stature, beliefs or achievement,” the officials stated. “As a sport there is nothing more important than ensuring no player has an unfair advantage over another, which unfortunately is the case in this situation if one player refuses to dedicate time to participate in media commitments while the others all honor their commitments.”
In her Instagram post Osaka also wrote, “I’m gonna take some time away from the court now, but when the time is right I really want to work with the Tour to discuss ways we can make things better for the players, press and fans.”
Matthew Futterman is a veteran sports journalist and the author of two books, “Running to the Edge: A Band of Misfits and the Guru Who Unlocked the Secrets of Speed” and “Players: How Sports Became a Business.” @mattfutterman
THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST (June 6rd, 2021)
Ex. 24, 3-8; Ps. 116; He. 9, 11-15; Mk. 14, 12-16 + 22-26. By +Guy Sansaricq
We celebrate today the mystery of CHRIST’S REAL PRESENCE in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. At mass, we do not simply perform a memorial service through which we simply remember what Jesus did. We MAKE PRESENT the sacrifice HE performed for us on Calvary. The LAMB of SACRIFICE is mysteriously made available to us. We are called to ‘EAT THE BREAD AND DRINK THE CUP. ” We are called to “Drink the blood that flowed from the side of the REDEEMER and while doing so to pledge our total adherence to the NEW COVENANT.
”Jesus said: “He who eats of my flesh and drinks of my blood shall have everlasting life and I will raise Him up on the last day.” He who meditates on this text and also on John 6 and 1 Cor. 10 and so many other texts cannot disregard or reject this central teaching.
This is a key tenet of our faith universally accepted from Jesus’ time to the sixteen century, the time of the reformation. The rejection of this teaching constitutes a serious mutilation of the inviolable deposit of the faith. But today we are not involved in discussions.
We stand humbly as witnesses of this great Mystery of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. We obey his command to eat and drink in faith the bread that has become His body, the wine turned into HIS blood. We commit ourselves to LIVE IN COMMUNION WITH HIM. Accepting the Eucharist is actually accepting Jesus the seed of eternal Life, the food of the journey!
Constitutional Referendum: How the International Community is Supporting an Illegal Power Grab in Haiti
“New Constitution: We Will Vote.”
The billboards are plastered across Port-au-Prince and throughout the country, as the government launches an all-out push ahead of a referendum planned for next month. The government is holding televised “debates,” printing ballots, lobbying international organizations, and apparently laying the groundwork for what it claims is a necessary effort to put Haiti’s governance on a path to success.
The catch? The campaign is only happening on one side. The entire effort is contested by myriad civil society organizations, grassroots groups, and political parties, all of whom maintain that the referendum is an illegal power grab on the part of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse. In fact, over the last week, a number of prominent political actors have called on the population to revolt against the referendum and use whatever means possible to prevent the vote from taking place.
[For a more detailed discussion on the specifics of the constitutional reform, and why many in Haiti are so adamantly opposed to it, the Haitian Studies Associated recently hosted a roundtable discussion with leading Haitian experts on the subject.]
Haiti is not the only country in the hemisphere currently debating constitutional reform. Last fall in Chile, voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of creating a new charter, and then earlier this month elected representatives responsible for drafting the new text. The constitutional convention’s work is expected to take many months, and the vote on the new text is not expected until sometime in mid-2022. There are regulations mandating the involvement of traditionally marginalized groups, including women and the nation’s Indigenous population.
By contrast, Haiti’s new charter was drafted by a small commission composed entirely of members handpicked by the president. On June 27, when Haitians are being asked to go to the polls, they will have to vote on the entirety of the new text with a simple “yes” or “no,” even though they have yet to see the final version. The commission did not issue a first draft of the proposed changes until January, and released it only in French, which the vast majority of Haitians do not speak. It released a revised version in late May, a month before the scheduled vote, and plans to issue one more version in June.
This week, after meeting with Moïse, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, reiterated the official position of the international community that, thus far, preparations for the referendum “have not been sufficiently transparent or inclusive.” The US’s public position is that its preference is for the Haitian government to first focus on holding legislative and presidential elections this fall before tackling the constitution controversy. For the last 17 months, Haiti has been without a functioning parliament, allowing the entire referendum process to unfold with President Moïse ruling by decree and without legislative oversight.
For many in Haiti, Moïse shouldn’t be in the National Palace anymore, let alone oversee the creation of a new constitution. Legal experts, human rights organizations, religious entities, and a broad-based network of civil society organizations contend that Moïse’s presidential mandate ended on February 7, 2021. They maintain that not only is his reform effort illegal, but that there is no chance for free, fair, or credible elections to be held under his watch at all. Last month, 69 members of the US Congress wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressing their agreement.
“We have repeatedly stated that constitutional reform is for the Haitian people to decide,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told the press in late April. “We’ve emphasized to the Haitian government that the US government will not provide financial support for a constitutional referendum.” But, while the US isn’t providing direct support, that does not mean its policy is not de facto enabling the referendum.
The International Community’s Silent Support
The international community has remained largely silent on the question of the referendum. The Core Group, which consists of the US, Canada, Brazil, France, the EU, the UN, and the OAS, among others, issued a statement in April noting that the process was not sufficiently transparent or inclusive. Nevertheless, international actors have refrained from explicitly calling for its cancellation or even its delay. Further, both the UN and the OAS are actively providing support for the referendum, despite their public statements of concern.
These two multilateral organizations have provided technical assistance to the commission tasked with drafting the new text since it was formed last fall. The OAS even helped with revisions to the text in an attempt to remove some of the more controversial aspects in the original. The UN, meanwhile, has helped to procure sensitive voting materials for the electoral council overseeing the referendum and has an agreement in place to provide logistics for holding the vote. The UN is also helping to advise the national police on an electoral security strategy.
But, more important than this technical assistance is the international community’s insistence on the holding of elections this fall. It is simply impossible to separate elections from the referendum, and donor support for the former is making the latter more likely by the day.
For starters, the new constitution would drastically alter the political landscape; for example, replacing the post of prime minister with a vice president, and abolishing the Senate altogether. Additionally, the draft text, if approved, mandates the government to institute a new electoral law. How can one speak of organizing elections in a few months when nobody even knows what posts will actually be contested, or under what laws? Clearly, the elections depend to a great degree on what happens in June.
Further, the international push for elections papers over valid criticisms of the broader voting process. The current electoral council was appointed by decree by the president, contrary to the law; the supreme court refused to swear in the new members. This is the electoral council that is set to oversee both the referendum and the elections later this year. By supporting their management of elections, one inherently supports their management of the referendum.
The US support for the illegal electoral council goes even further. Through USAID, the US government has spent $12.6 million since Moïse was elected in support of “elections and political processes.” Most of that money goes to US-based entities like the National Democratic Institute (NDI), the International Republic Institute (IRI), and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). The organizations implement their own programs, and so do not necessarily equate to “direct” support to the referendum or to elections.
But, in late March, acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Julie Chung tweeted: “The U.S., via @USAID_Haiti, is helping the Haitian people prepare for elections by providing technical support to the @cep_haiti, strengthening political parties and NGOs, and increasing the participation of women in Haitian politics.”
The US may not be directly funding the referendum, but make no mistake, the policies of the international community are going a long way toward ensuring the controversial referendum takes place as scheduled.