Naomi Osaka leaves press conference after reporter’s question

Tennis player Naomi Osaka briefly leaves a conference room after a reporter’s question during a press meeting. As reported by Today, this was Osaka’s first press conference since publicly sharing her struggles with mental health three months ago.

Osaka took a question from a journalist from a Cincinnati Enquirer during the Zoom conference. The journalist asked Osaka about how she deals with the media when she gets upset. 

“You’re not crazy about dealing with us, especially in this format, yet you have a lot of outside interests that are served by having a media platform. I guess my question is, how do you balance the two?” asked journalist Paul Daugherty. 

“When you say I’m not crazy about dealing with you guys, what do you refer to?” Osaka asked Daugherty. 

The press conference moderator asked Osaka if she would like to move on, but Osaka asked to hear the question again. 

“I can’t really help that there are some things that I tweet or some things that I say that kind of create a lot of news articles or things like that. And I know that it’s because I’ve won a couple of Grand Slams and I’ve gotten to do a lot of press conferences that these things happen. But I would also say I’m not really sure how to balance it. I’m figuring it out at the same time as you are, I would say,” said Osaka. 

Osaka then left the press conference in tears but returned later to finish answering questions. Osaka’s agent issued a statement to NBC News with issues about Daugherty’s question.

“The bully at the Cincinnati Enquirer is the epitome of why player/media relations are so fraught right now. Everyone on that Zoom will agree that his tone was all wrong and his sole purpose was to intimidate. Really appalling behavior. And this insinuation that Naomi owes her off-court success to the media is a myth — don’t be so self-indulgent,” said Stuart Duguid, Osaka’s agent.