Osaka game to return 'soon'

PARIS • Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka says she will return to tennis soon after feeling the "itch" to play again.

The Japanese, 23, said earlier this month she planned to take an indefinite break from the sport after losing in the third round of the US Open to finalist Leylah Fernandez.

She had previously also pulled out of the French Open and skipped Wimbledon to protect her mental health.

"I know I'm going to play again," Osaka told HBO show The Shop.

Adding that her return would be "probably soon", she said: "I kind of have that itch again.

"It wouldn't really matter to me if I won or lost, I'd just have the joy of being back on the court."

Osaka, who recently dropped out of the top five in the world rankings, said her problems with depression and anxiety were exacerbated by speaking to the media.

She had also made an early exit from Cincinnati last month, and had bowed out of the Tokyo Olympics in the early rounds.

"I used to love the competition and just being competitive," she said.

"If I were to play a long match, the longer it was, the more fun it was. I just started to feel recently the longer it was, the more stressed I became. I just needed a break to go within myself."

Osaka was fined for failing to meet mandatory media requirements after her opening win at Roland Garros. She withdrew from the tournament a day later.

Roger Federer has joined calls to improve the relationship between players and the media.

"Players, the tournaments, journalists, we need to sit down together in a room and go, 'OK, what would work for you and what works for us'," he said.

"Even when I am feeling down, I know I need to act a certain way in front of the world's press. We need to remember that tennis players are also human too."

The 40-year-old Swiss also said tennis needed to do more to help young stars, such as Osaka and US Open winner Emma Raducanu, deal with negativity.

Britain's Raducanu, 18, had received criticism after retiring from her fourth-round match in her maiden Wimbledon appearance following breathing difficulties, with some saying she had failed to handle the pressure.

"It's been amazing, both of their stories," said Federer. "But it hurts when you see what happens and when they don't feel well. The stress is so great. And I think a lot has to be down to social media."

Mental health issues are not unique to tennis alone.

United States gymnastics icon Simone Biles said on Monday she should have quit "way before Tokyo" but held on to her Olympic dream even though it took a heavy emotional toll on her well-being.

The 24-year-old, who has 32 Olympic and World Championship medals, was expected to dominate at the Tokyo Games but caused a sensation by pulling out of the opening event of the gymnastics competition to focus on her mental health.

"If you look at everything I have gone through the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team. I should have quit way before Tokyo," she said.

The American added that mental health concerns that led to her dramatic withdrawal had begun even before she arrived in Japan. A survivor of sexual abuse, Biles said the Larry Nassar scandal took an overwhelming emotional toll.

"It was too much," she said.

"But I was not going to let him take something I have worked for since I was six. I wasn't going to let him take that joy away. So I pushed for as long as my mind and my body would let me."

Biles, strongly tipped to win six golds in Japan, was hit by the "twisties" in Tokyo - a potentially dangerous phenomenon that causes gymnasts to lose their sense of direction when in the air.

She later returned to compete in the balance beam final, in which she won a bronze.

Biles has not given up gymnastics altogether and is hoping to help end the stigma associated with mental health so that affected people can get diagnosed quicker and treatments can improve.

"I just want a doctor to tell me when I'll be over this," she said.

"Why can't someone just tell me in six months it'll be over?"

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS