In mid-March, Naomi Osaka was unable to hold back her tears when a spectator yelled “Naomi, you’re disgusting” during her match against Russia’s Veronika Koidermetova in Indian Wells. The Japanese loved it and came out too.
After a place in the final in Miami at the beginning of April, the Japanese want to continue working on the Madrid gravel. Osaka’s response to reporters’ questions about her mental health was: “I’m not going to lie, it just doesn’t work out perfectly every day.”
“I talk to my therapist at least once a week and try to open up. Filtering negativity out of the minority is one of the things I’ve grown to do. I also do mental exercises to focus on the positive.”
Trying to do the same with events in Indian Wells. “Even though I really hated what happened, I’m glad in the end that I experienced it. I think I grew up as a person because of it.”
Osaka has been struggling with her mental health for some time, and the world number one has slipped to the 36th in the WTA rankings. The Japanese also said she is staying away from Twitter, “because it’s more negative than, for example, Instagram.”
