Naomi Osaka may not participate at Wimbledon due to ranking points row - 'it’ll be more like an exhibition'

Naomi Osaka has revealed that she's "not 100 per cent sure" she will play at Wimbledon due to the lack of ranking points on offer, in the first sign that big-name players may be absent from the Grand Slam.

Both the ATP and WTA tours announced in the previous week that they have stripped the summer Slam of its ranking points because of the tournament's decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players.

British player Cam Norrie said on Sunday that some stars could be missing from Wimbledon.

And Osaka said after losing her first-round match at the French Open to Amanda Anisimova that she may now skip the grass-court Slam.

“I would love to go to get some experience on the grass court," said Osaka. "But I’m the type of player who gets motivated by seeing my ranking go up.”

She supported her answer to another question in Japanese, saying: "I feel like if I play Wimbledon without points it’ll be more like an exhibition.

"I know this isn’t true, but my brain just feels like that way and whenever I think of something like an exhibition I just can’t go at it 100 per cent.

“I didn’t even make my decision yet but I’m leaning more towards not playing given the current circumstances. That might change but I do want to get more experience on the grass and I know that the Berlin tournament is giving out points.”

Osaka has, over the last calendar year, become an avid campaigner for greater support for player welfare across the world tours, and pulled out of the 2021 French Open due to her own mental health concerns.

She spoke of her 'progression' in her attitude after her defeat to Anisimova, saying that she now "[doesn't] look at my messages [on social media]. I also filter things out, and I try to wait three days or so after a loss, and I have my Instagram and Twitter set up so I can only see verified people. Usually if I lose, I just get a lot of news that I lost, so I try to wait a couple of days before I go back on or I just don’t look at it at all. I think the way that I’m handling it is better because I rarely go on Twitter and Twitter is the most negative place.”

The Japanese star also gave an update on her physical condition, with many noting that she kept stretching out her Achilles tendon; an injury which had kept her out of action in Rome having sustained it against Anastasia Potapova in Madrid in the lead-up to the French Open.

“I didn’t play that many matches coming into this tournament so there were probably some really bad decisions I made on certain points, but overall I wasn’t too bad," she said.

“I took a painkiller before my match so I still kind of felt it a little, but I’ll see if it wears off. I had prepared myself to feel it, so that wasn’t the worrying part, it was just annoying to me because the last time I played here our serves were really important and coming into this tournament I didn’t serve a lot because we wanted to wait until the last minute to protect my Achilles. Stretching it felt better; that’s why I was doing it often.”

Eurosport commentator Mark Petchey has criticised the governing bodies for a lack of togetherness in the decision-making processes that led to Russian and Belarusian players being banned at Wimbledon, quickly followed by the All England Club's stripping of their ranking points.

Speaking immediately after Osaka's update, Petchey said: "Well, it’s been a mess, hasn’t it, let’s be honest.

"Unfortunately, the points situation that has now happened on the eve of a Grand Slam is obviously not the greatest timing for Roland-Garros as well, overshadow[ing] the beginning of this Grand Slam. There will be more players, I imagine, who decide not to take the trip over to Wimbledon as well, based on the fact that there won’t be any points on offer. And you would love to see a day where a decision of that magnitude was taken in unison with all of the governing bodies involved in that.

"It is a huge decision, there are obviously massive, massive implications in terms of the sport; there is obviously a bigger issue in terms of what is happening in Ukraine, and the togetherness of the sport should have been at the paramount of importance to everybody in a decision-making position in this sport to have got it absolutely spot on. There should have been no room for any error; for any disagreement; and it should have been done not right at the beginning of this tournament.”

- - -

Stream the 2022 French Open live and on-demand on discovery+