TOKYO — First, Naomi Osaka did the easy part, beating one of the top 60 tennis players in the world, and then she did what is apparently the hard part: Talk about it.
Osaka famously put her career on pause this spring so she could focus on her mental health. The trigger for that decision, at least publicly, was the insistence from French Open organizers that she speak at press conferences after her matches. Osaka asked out. Organizers pushed her back in. She then withdrew from the tournament before her second-round match. This weekend, she came back to public life in just about the most high-profile way possible, short of a match on the moon: She lit the Olympic cauldron Friday night, then competed for Japan in the Tokyo Games.