Athletes quit, retire and take sabbaticals all the time. That said, when Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open in 2021 after winning her first-round match and announced that she wouldn’t play at Wimbledon that summer, the sports world took notice — which, in turn, gave Osaka a platform to open up about her struggles with mental health. It started when she chose to skip one of the tourney’s grueling post-match press conferences, which she characterized as emotionally draining. Doing so might have made her an easy target for the tabloid press, but the impact of her decision was undeniable: When Simone Biles departed the Tokyo Olympics a few months later to protect her own mental health, she cited Osaka as an inspiration. Osaka’s work around mental health care continues: In 2022, she joined Modern Health as chief community health advocate of the company’s community impact program.
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