Press Conferences (updated)

We're all talking about it so I will too. Osaka has gone on strike and not doing pre or post-match press conferences. Why? 🤔 Apparently, it's not good for her mental health. Maybe other tennis players feel the same.

Opinion is divided over it. Osaka is playing at Roland Garros at the moment and has already been fined for not turning up for her first round post-match press conference. (Osaka beat Tig in her first round match.) And could face suspension from not only RG but future GS's. Is it worth missing Grand Slams she could win just because she feels press conferences are too mentally tough to get through? Losing is soul-destroying but you have to look at it pragmatically. It happens. Everyone has to deal with that scenario. The only thing you can do is ask yourself: What can I change to ensure a better result next time? 🤔 For instance, I changed my serve between tournaments and achieved 80% first serves in by my next tournament. However, this was still not good enough. The next step was to have more disguise on it. So, I don't try to change everything at once. I know it's different for elite athletes who are already at the top of their game but even so there's always something to improve. I've noticed that both Nadal and Djokovic have gone up another gear in the last year which is impressive. Staying focused on your game is one important way to cope with stress around it. 

I'm reminded of the time I declared I was going to go on strike and refuse to write essays during my UG course. I'd had enough, not unsurprisingly. However, luckily for me, Professor Susan James reminded me gently that keeping busy was what it was about. It sounds an innocuous thing to say but I understood what she meant, so I never actually went on strike and wrote 100% of my essays for the whole course. Yes, my situation was dire but not writing essays wasn't going to achieve anything. At worst, I wouldn't be able to take the exams to carry on, at best the work would pile up and I'd end up in an even more stressful situation. Students write essays that's what they do.  So I had to do them whether I wanted to or not. Just as Osaka has to do press conferences or she'll pile up even more stress for herself. 

What's the point of the parallel? It shows that responding in a gentle, kind and empathetic way towards the person on strike is far more effective than taking a high and mighty, strict approach. Threatening and imposing penalties will not solve the issue and could make it worse for both Osaka and the tennis world. Especially when you are dealing with someone who is under enormous mental and emotional stress. 

Perhaps, players could have some down time between their match and their press conference?🤔 It would give players time to recover somewhat physically, mentally and emotionally. Playing matches is an emotional rollercoaster, especially if you lose because it's a psychological contradiction. On the one hand, you have to psych yourself up so that you are totally capable of winning and must believe in yourself in a way which makes you anticipate that you will win. But the trouble with this often recommended sports psychology approach that people never seen to address is that, when you lose, it causes a bigger emotional drop, making you feel more shocked and upset than objectively you perhaps should feel. So I decided I'd have to start changing how I psych myself up for matches and put less expectation on myself to win, otherwise it causes unnecessary emotional ups and downs, which also makes the tour more tiring. Nevertheless, emotional low points are probably somewhat inevitable immediately after a player has lost matches, so long press conferences straight after matches is not practical. 

In my experience, you need roughly a couple of hours after losing a match to do some initial processing of what has happened in the match, both cognitively and emotionally. You need to hear your team say positive, supportive things, know that they are still pleased and proud of you and how you played. Some initial discussions start about what happened and how to improve your game before your next match. You sometimes need to just go to the bathroom to be completely alone and bawl your eyes out crying over the match, simply to release the negative emotions rather than hold them in and suppress them. Let all sorts of stupid, irrational and negative thoughts flood into your mind as you let off emotional steam for a few minutes! Ironically, you'll put the match into perspective faster, realise you're just feeling upset, it's not actually that bad, it's just part of the process. I felt great after just taking 10 minutes to be alone and let my emotions out and was ready to face the world and questions about the match! 

But perhaps the trouble with immediate press conferences is that, if a player shows any emotion in a press conference, the media will take it too seriously and erroneously think they are on the brink of a nervous breakdown when they are not! It's just a tension release and perfectly healthy. Probably if a player is always too calm and fine after a match they may not be coping as well as they seem because they could be suppressing their emotions rather than expressing and releasing them. But they won't run with a story about how calm and collected a player seemed after a match, only how upset they looked. This makes players 'bottle up' how they feel and could be making them cope less well on tour and in the interviews.

Furthermore, it's not creating better interviews either. It's unrealistic to expect players to immediately give everyone a full match analysis! That comes with spending time remembering certain points, thinking it through and discussing it with your coach. So the interviews are inevitably of poorer quality when they are so shortly after a match. The media will simply receive pre-prepared, meaningless stock-in phrases and answers from players or the player will merely say they don't know yet. If the media just waited a couple of hours, they might receive fuller, more interesting answers! A full match analysis takes a huge amount of hours thinking it through yourself as well as discussing it with your coach. But a couple of hours is enough for a brief analysis and a clearer head. So I totally identify with players who say they haven't had time to process what happened in the match yet! 

However, I didn't have to spend any time thinking about my position on the subject of press conferences. Much as I understand how difficult it is to lose a match, nevertheless, it's a privilege to do them regardless of how you are feeling. It's a vitally important part of being a tennis player because it's a good way to get to know the player. Tennis isn't just about what happens on-court. Off-court is just as important. Fans need to connect with players. Press conferences are one way that they do this. All players in the main draw have to do these press conferences. Some players have, on occasion, skipped a post-match conference but they tend to be a one-off and they are fined for it.

Aside from press conferences being part of the job of being a professional tennis player, there is the matter of money. Most players don't earn much but there are some at the top level who earn vast sums of money. Osaka is the highest earning woman athlete. In the last year alone, despite the world-wide health crisis, she has earned over $55.2m out of which $50m is for off-court endorsements. That's an extraordinary amount of money. With such a multi-million dollar income, there are even greater responsibilities that come with it. And it gives her a luxurious lifestyle. Surely, then, a press conference isn't too much to ask of her! 

What I am struggling to understand is why this problem has suddenly arisen. When I was playing ITF tournaments, tennis players on the ITF were given media training so they could cope with interviews and press conferences. Presumably, this is still the case. In addition, there's also access to sport psychology to help with mental health. Osaka currently has access to the WTA's Player Development education and resource centre which lists an amazing amount of excellent resources and programmes - I should wish universities were this supportive and informative! Their information page on the WTA website states that "Since their implementation in 1995, the WTA's innovative Player Development programs have been proved successful at addressing the athletes' top stress and performance-related factors, reducing burn-out and increasing career longevity." Players can "access WTA services and gain concrete skills to maximise their performance and mitigate the known environmental stressors". There are a number of programmes available, including Media Training to help players "learn how to be prepared, professional and self-expressive in public speaking opportunities" ; Player Orientation, which teaches them about the "on-site realites and responsibilities"; and even a programme for both current and past players which "provides sophisticated education, training and career guidance to maximize opportunities, in business and in life, during the tennis career and after", for instance, relating to finance, business, coaching, public speaking and business presentations. There's even a programme designed to help players' team members understand how to support their player and learn about "what players will encounter in the professional area" including "the rules and expectations that govern all parties in the environment". So Osaka's team should know how to support her if she is struggling on tour.

For these quotes above and for more detailed info, see:

https://www.wtatennis.com/player-development

So there's plenty of help and welfare resources available on the tour for Osaka to enable her, her team and others to cope with the various pressures on the tour. Many, including the WTA, are eager to resolve this situation. I hope that Osaka sits down and talks to them to bring about a happy outcome. Her refusal to do press conferences is a sad situation and harms not only tennis as a sport but also herself. None of us want to see Osaka, or any player, suspended from future Grand Slams. Indeed, tennis fans have been looking forward to the return of tennis on the big stage with spectators in the stands. It's been a tough year. It still is. We are all struggling. Tennis players are sportspeople as well as entertainers. We can't wait to watch RG, Wimbledon and the US Grand Slams and enjoy great matches in which players fight for every point. We rejoice with the winner, we commiserate with the loser. There are highs, there are lows, and we love it all. Let's hope that a solution can be found swiftly so the tour is not marred by controversy. Mental health is important but refusing to do press conferences isn't necessarily the way to safeguard it.