When thinking of Naomi Osaka, Brand Nubian’s “Love Me or Leave Me Alone” chorus immediately comes to mind.
I can picture Naomi walking out of Roland Garros, giving the peace sign while looking over her shoulder and singing to all in attendance “You gotta’ love me or leave me alone”.
It would be a fitting conclusion to an emotional week for Osaka.
It started when she announced that she would not be doing any media around the French Open in order to focus on her mental health.
“I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athlete’s mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one,” tweeted Osaka.
“if the organizations think that they can just keep saying, ‘do the press of 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. Anyways, I hope the considerable amount I get fined for this will go towards a mental health charity,” she added.
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Originally posted 2021-06-02 09:00:00.
