Fifteen love to Naomi Osaka

Should sports stars be obliged to talk to the media?

Until she said she has struggled with depression for years, the overwhelming view was that Naomi Osaka was somehow cheating us by saying she hated post-match press conferences and wouldn’t be doing them.

Every pundit, every journalist, every voice I heard said a version of the same thing: talking to the press is part of what she is paid for; she owes it to the game; she owes it to the sponsors and her fellow players.

The Wimbledon authorities said so too.

It felt like bullying to me.

Even were she not ill, I don’t see why Osaka should be forced to do something that plainly makes her uncomfortable, and the whole incident rather exposed where power really lies.

Because Osaka is wealthy, the assumption was that she wasn’t keeping up her side of the bargain by declining to speak to the media.

This is the usual defence from tabloid hacks for why they think trawling through the dustbins of celebrities is justifiable – we made them famous, this is part of the price.

In Osaka’s case, a talented young black woman was basically ordered by white male CEOs to do what she is told.

I don’t know why she had to reveal her depression and quit the French Open before anyone found this uncomfortable.