French Open 2022: Naomi Osaka hopes to find her feet on Roland Garros clay-Sports News , Firstpost

Naomi Osaka faces Amanda Anisimova in the first round of French Open 2022. AFP

If you believe in social media posts, Naomi Osaka is a much happier person. Or at least trying to be.

Apart from the tweets about myriad business interests, Osaka has been using the microblogging to send out ‘chill vibes’, pen affirmations and emanate positivity. Whether it represents the true picture or not, it is an encouraging sign from one of the most precocious tennis talents after she spent most of the last 12 months under a cloud.

Trouble began with her refusing to attend the mandatory post-match press conferences at the French Open. She was fined for skipping press and threatened with expulsion. Not wanting to be a ‘distraction’ anymore, Osaka pulled out of the tournament. That’s when she revealed that she had been battling ‘bouts of depression’ since winning her first Grand Slam at the 2018 US Open. Osaka brought the conversation about mental health of elite athletes to the table, front and centre.

Despite the barrier she had broken down and support she received from other athletes, the four-time Grand Slam champion seemed to be reeling emotionally. After losing to Leylah Fernandez in the third round of the US Open, Osaka said she was taking an indefinite break from tennis.

“I feel like for me recently, like, when I win I don’t feel happy,” she added. There were times when Osaka broke down in the press conference room. At Indian Wells, earlier this year, she was reduced to tears by a heckler.

But the Japanese, with the help of a mental health expert, has worked on dispersing the darkness. She reached the final of the WTA 1000 event in Miami and approached the clay season with renewed spirit.

“Yeah, for the most part, I think I’m OK,” Osaka said of her return to French Open, a year after she walked out of the tournament.

“I was just kind of worried if there would be people that like — of course I also didn’t like how I handled the situation, but I was worried that there were people that I offended in some way and I would just kind of bump into them,” the 24-year-old said on Friday.

“I was also very worried about this press conference because I knew I’d get a lot of questions about this. But, yeah, I wouldn’t want to say it’s like it hasn’t left my mind. Of course, I’m still thinking about it, and I’m kind of also prepping just in case I go on the court and a fan says something like in Indian Wells. I feel like the thing that’s changed, me trying to figure out the crowd. I feel like I’m a stand-up comedian, and I’m trying to figure out what’s okay and what’s not okay.”

One of the reasons Osaka wanted to skip the press last year is her record on clay.

A Japanese player, bred on American hard courts, Osaka has struggled to make sense of the soft, shifting red dirt. All of the seven titles she has won so far, including the four Grand Slams, have come on hard courts. Her sister, Mari, a retired tennis player, admitted that Osaka didn’t want to be reminded, and prodded, about her shortcomings on the surface. It would only mean planting doubts in her already anxious mind.

But rather than pulling a veil over her limitations like last year, Osaka has sought to understand the whims of the surface a little more this time. Osaka revealed she had been watching videos of Rafael Nadal, the King of Clay, and of Carlos Alcaraz, Nadal’s heir-apparent, to improve her clay court craft.

“I think I stole one of the things that he (Nadal) did and I’ve been practising it recently,” Osaka said in Madrid recently. “It’ll either go really good or really bad. There’s like no in between. But I think as I’ve been doing it, it’s been going pretty well.”

Despite the effort, Osaka hasn’t had enough matches on clay to make her a firm title contender going into the French Open, which begins Sunday. She was scheduled to play the WTA 1000 events in Madrid and Rome. While she lost in the second round in Madrid, Osaka pulled out of the latter due to an achilles injury.

She will have to pop a few painkillers, but Osaka said that wouldn’t keep her away from the French Open this year, even though the road back won’t be easy. In the first round, she will face 2019 semifinalist Amanda Anisimova, who’s staging a career revival. Anisimova defeated Osaka in the third round of this year’s Australian Open, the official ‘Happy Slam’ and one of Osaka’s favourites.

“I wouldn’t say I don’t want to play her, because I feel like, for me, I’m the type of person that if you beat me, it motivates me more to win,” said Osaka of her first-round clash. “And I also learned a lot from the match.”

Armed with lessons from the match, and the experience from the past 12 months, Osaka will enter the French Open wanting to give a better account of herself. Or find the joy of playing again.

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