“It’s O.K. to not be O.K.,” Naomi Osaka famously wrote in 2021. That year, Osaka courageously declared to the world that she would be stepping away from tennis to take care of her mental health. She shared that after winning her first Grand Slam in 2018, she suffered from anxiety and depression.

Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the 2021 French Open and temporarily step away from tennis to focus on her mental health left many puzzled at the time. However, many also lauded her for taking the brave decision despite the stigma surrounding mental health issues.

According to Ryan Clark, her choice to prioritize her well-being over competition helped ignite a broader, much-needed conversation about the intense pressures athletes face and the significance of mental health and self-care in professional sports.

“I think Naomi Osaka is a very necessary human. As an athlete. Unfortunately, there are these people who go through these things publicly that allow the entire sports world to learn, and she has just been chosen to be that one. What she did at the French Open years ago, stepping away and saying, ‘I gotta focus on myself.’ That was groundbreaking.”

Lauding her for her openness in the face of personal struggles, Clark added:

“And then to explain why she did it. You know that by choosing to be open about it, there’s going to be criticism, there’s going to be disappointment, even in explaining it, there’s going to be criticism.”

Adding to her struggles, Naomi also underwent postpartum complications due to her “traumatic” birth experience. Osaka welcomed her daughter, Shai, in July 2023, marking a deeply meaningful chapter in her life.

Naomi Osaka’s struggles continue

She described motherhood as “so fulfilling,” but also candidly acknowledged the challenges of juggling her return to professional tennis with the demands of being a new mom. Osaka admitted the transition was “tough,” underscoring the critical role of a strong support system, and noting that raising a child truly “takes a village.” Once she returned to the court, she admitted, “I don’t feel like I’m in my body.”

“And then she had a baby. And I think for female athletes, when you give birth to a child, it’s so much different than it is for us… I think it’s super cool of her to let us see it because so many people hide it,” Clark said on the Pivot podcast.

The former world No. 1 continues to navigate the emotional and physical challenges of her return to tennis. In May, she was visibly emotional during her media interview after Osaka fell in the first round of the French Open to Spain’s Paula Badosa. Despite a promising start, Osaka’s performance unraveled with 54 unforced errors and five double faults, hindered further by blisters on her hands caused by the clay surface.

Last week, the Japanese player suffered a tough 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at Wimbledon. It marked yet another early exit for Osaka, who hasn’t advanced past the third round of a Grand Slam since winning her last major title at the Australian Open in January 2021.

After her latest Wimbledon loss, Osaka was candid about her frustration: “Yes, [I feel closer to a deep run], but honestly, right now I’m just really upset. I’m just going to be a negative human being today. I’m so sorry. I have nothing positive to say about myself, which is something I’m working on.”

PEWAUKEE, Wis. — Transitioning out of the military and into civilian life can put a toll on mental health. 

According to the most recent data from Veteran Affairs, there were 136 veteran suicides in Wisconsin in 2022 and suicide was the 12th leading cause of death for veterans in 2022.

Jairo Javier enlisted in the Marines in 2014 when he was only 17-years-old. 

“My uncle was a Marine. I idolized him as a kid growing up. So, I always had a desire to be a Marine, even though I did not fully understand what that fully entailed,” said Javier. 

Javier served nine years total, six of which were active duty and three years in the reserves. He said he misses many things about it. 

“The brotherhood, the comradery, the high stakes environment, just the intensity behind the job,” said Javier. “You don’t truly appreciate it until after you leave. At least that was my case.” 

(Spectrum News 1/Cody Taylor)

When Javier retired from the military, he had taken up skydiving as a sport to keep him busy. 

Now, he says he spends a lot of his free time out on the water boating. 

“Regardless of what background you have, getting out on a boat and coasting across the water or floating on the water is something that is a stress reliever,” said Javier. 

Jeremy Lyon works for the division of veterans’ benefits at the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.

He said the military experience runs deep and it can be difficult to transition out of the military. 

(Spectrum News 1/Cody Taylor)

“There’s that fundamental fact that you are now missing that fundamental mission you were a part of and missing that team and the comrades you had besides you,” said Lyon. 

He said it is important veterans know what resources are available or to at least find a sense of community when they exit the military. 

“I have heard of a number of veterans who go fishing, go boating, go horseback riding, these are all great experiences,” said Lyon. “They bring us together as a community, they give you a peer network of other veterans to talk to.” 

While Javier said he found boating to be a good pastime, Lyon said veterans can also get involved with the American Legion or one of the other veterans’ groups in the community.

MHSAA marks a century of prioritizing health and safety in school sports across Michigan. From its inception, the organization has driven initiatives alongside defined health guidelines, addressing issues like head injuries, heat management, and cardiac incidents. Executive directors have promoted mental health awareness and implemented policies to ensure safety through comprehensive physical assessments and emergency action plans. Insurance programs supporting youth in catastrophic situations have also been foundational. As conversations around sports often overlook these issues, the MHSAA remains committed to keeping athlete safety at the forefront.

By the Numbers

• MHSAA introduced updated physical forms in 2011, incorporating family health histories.
• Since 2015-16, MHSAA has mandated reporting of all potential head injuries among athletes.

State of Play

• MHSAA continues developing policies for heat and humidity to enhance hydration practices during activities.
• The organization has integrated mental health training in annual meetings and promoted suicide prevention initiatives.

What’s Next

The MHSAA plans to further refine safety protocols and expand educational resources for coaches, focusing on emerging health issues and athlete well-being. Upcoming initiatives may also explore innovative approaches to enhance mental health support and athlete safety in increasingly stress-inducing environments.

Bottom Line

The emphasis on health and safety within school sports is essential for sustaining athlete participation and success. The MHSAA’s proactive stance ensures that athlete well-being remains a priority, reinforcing that safety measures are foundational to any successful sports program.

Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek is ranked #4 in the world and is playing Amanda Anisimova in the Wimbledon final.

Her athletic gifts run in the family. She is the daughter of a father who was an Olympian.

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Swiatek’s dad Tomasz Swiatek, “represented Poland in rowing at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul,” according to People.

She also has a sister Agata Swiatek who has some athletic talents.

Agata competed for Poland in that country’s junior tennis, leaving in 2013.

Olympics.com explained the importance of Swiatek’s dad to her tennis career.

In 2020, Iga Swiatek “announced herself to the tennis world when she won the French Open at Roland-Garros without dropping a set throughout the tournament. She was the first Polish player, male or female, to win a Grand Slam singles title,” the site wrote.

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“Swiatek’s family had a major influence on her path to success from a very young age. She was born into a sports-oriented family in Warsaw. Her father Tomasz, who represented Poland in rowing at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games, strongly encouraged her to pursue a career in sports,” Olympics.com reported.

By 2016, she won a major professional tournament before she was even 18.

Her dad spoke to a Polish news site about his daughter, whom he previously coached.

“There are still matches where it’s clear that Iga is struggling from the start, struggling to play her tennis. This hurts me as a parent,” Tomasz Swiatek told Sportowefakty.

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“Iga is so intelligent and independent that we don’t even discuss it. I don’t suggest or advise anything. She has coaches for that. I’ve stepped aside,” the dad said. “Tomasz Wiktorowski is responsible for tennis matters, Maciej Ryszczuk for general preparation, and Daria Abramowicz for psychological matters. The team works very well, and they themselves ensure the workload is at the appropriate level.”

Her mother is named Dorota Swiatek, and she is an orthodontist, People reported. Her sister Agata is now an orthodontist as well, according to her bio.

Her parents are divorced.

Related: Iga Swiatek Dating History: Is She Married or Single?

Iga Swiatek’s Family Includes an Olympian Father first appeared on Men’s Journal on Jul 12, 2025

During this year’s Wimbledon, post-match interviews turned into televised therapy sessions, as players revealed internal turmoil.

While there is no one way to address mental health issues, according to experts, there are effective measures professional tennis players can take to manage their emotions. Carlos Alcaraz and Amanda Anisimova appear to practice those strategies.

“I’ve felt down a lot of times on the court and in tournaments. I’m just really happy to have found the right path again and such good joy on the court,” said Alcaraz in a post-match interview. “For me, it is not about winning or losing. For me it’s about having fun playing tennis, have fun stepping on court.”

Alcaraz takes a 24-match winning streak into the finals against Jannik Sinner on Sunday. Anisimova stunned No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka to reach her first Wimbledon final, where she will play Iga Swiatek.

Anisimova took eight months off from tennis to focus on her mental health. She didn’t even pick up a racket for months.

“When I took my break, a lot of people told me that you would never make it to the top again if you take so much time away from the game. And that was a little hard to digest, because I did want to come back and still achieve a lot,” said Anisimova in a post-match interview. “So just me being able to prove that, you know, you can get back to the top if you prioritize yourself. So that’s been incredibly special to me.”

Not since Naomi Osaka opted out of a press conference in 2021 has mental health been such a hot topic in tennis.

After his first-round loss, a sunken Alexander Zverev told reporters he never felt lonelier than he did out on the court and might consider therapy. When asked about Zverev’s despair, Aryna Sabalenka told the Associated Press that she was in treatment for five years.

“It’s really important to be open and to talk about what are you experiencing, because if you’re going to keep it inside, it’s just going to destroy you. I think that’s kind of like something happening to him,” Sabalenka said.

Madison Keys credits therapy with helping her win the 2025 Australian Open.

LaKeitha Poole, assistant athletic director of Sport Psychology and Counseling at LSU, said the destigmatization of therapy has changed in recent years, and more athletes are incorporating mental well-being into their overall performance preparation.

“It’s just like having your athletic trainer, your strength coach, your dietician,” said Poole. “You’re seeing people talking about therapy being a critical component of their recovery process. The stigmatization has shifted things and created safer spaces for people to be able to talk about it. And, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to when people were ashamed.”

Why Some Tennis Players Struggle With Mental Health

“Tennis is one of the toughest sports out there due to the individual nature of it and how young the professional players are when they turn pro,” said Mark Kovacs, a human performance scientist and CEO of the Kovacs Institute. “Many of them (tennis players) are in their teens, and some of them are in their early teens, and that in itself, creates a whole other level of pressure many other sports don’t have.”

A former All-American tennis player at Auburn, Kovacs also served as senior director of sports science and health for the Cleveland Cavaliers. He understands the unique pressure tennis players face.

“It’s one of the few sports in the world where the players actually hire and fire their coaches, their trainers, their support staff at a very young age. Most team sports, you have general managers, you have coaches that make those decisions for the players,” said Kovacs. “So there’s a whole pressure that comes with being a CEO of your own company . . . And then the challenge in tennis is there’s no guaranteed contracts, so you’re having to win matches to pay your bills, so you don’t have the opportunity of having a bad week or a bad month that immediately affects your bottom line.”

In an interview with the Tennis Channel, Alex de Minaur said, unlike in a team sport, tennis players can’t count on someone to pick up the slack if they’re having an off day.

“Ultimately, you’re out there on your own, right? So you are the one responsible for your own results,” said De Minaur. “There’s no hiding, right? So you’re constantly in the spotlight, and that with the travel, the weeks, the length of schedule, I think, does have an impact on on us as players and and human beings.”

Gen Z More Comfortable Talking About Mental Health

Poole believes one reason more tennis stars are talking about mental health is that more players are Gen Z.

“People who are part of that generation, broadly, whether they are athletes or not, they’re just much more comfortable talking about mental health,” said Poole. “They have much more of an emotional vocabulary. So, you know, I just think that they’re reframing what does it look like to be an athlete, not particularly playing tennis, but also just being able to be themselves and talk about what’s going on with them as they compete.”

Gen Z is also part of the influencer and the attention economy, in which staying relevant means posting a version of themselves online. Self-promotion, mining for likes, leads to business deals. Yet, TikTok likes provide an artificial connection, followers, not friends.

“There is such a dire issue of loneliness and isolation,” said Weirong Li, CEO of Raw Culture, a media company focused on amplifying narratives of global citizenship to create social change. As a communications coach, Weirong, 26, works with Gen Z professionals.

“In general Gen Z, because we grew up in such an online culture, in tech heavy world, it’s very hard for us to really build deep and genuine relationships.”

Weirong said Gen Z is programmed to rely on tech but wired for human interaction. She noted a video on YouTube for Gen Z on “How do I make friends?” that has millions of views.

“It’s so heartbreaking,” she said. “Meanwhile, the longest longitudinal study from Harvard School of Development found, what’s the secret to the most successful life? The quality and depth of our closest relationships.”

Weirong said Alcaraz’s focus on enjoying himself, friendships, and family keeps him grounded.

“When the athletes go back home they’re not that superstar, they’re just normal humans. And so it gives them a sense of kind of bringing them down (to earth), decreasing the stress,” Weirong said. “And so just having people who just like, feel like family, are family, comfortable about who you really are, definitely helps you with the anxiety of feeling like you have to behave a certain way.”

Whether it’s Coco Gauff joking about her younger brothers, Ben Shelton lobbying for his sister to get a day off, Djokovic showcasing his daughter’s silly dance, or Anisimova bringing her nephew onto the court after a win, human connections foster emotional well-being.

Performance Anxiety Versus Clinical Mental Health

Players who are working on staying focused during big moments are fighting a different beast than someone who is battling clinical depression. Unfortunately, sometimes people conflate the two, and that’s a mistake, says Kovacs.

“A lot of coaches would have the expertise to deal with some of the mental health challenges and create the right environment,” said Kovacs. “The challenge is, just like with coaches, physical trainers, there’s a whole level of expertise that varies in the mental health and sports psychology world.”

Jack Draper, who struggled with match performance anxiety, hired a breathing coach. Daria Abramowicz, a sports psychologist, is an integral part of Iga Swiatek’s team.

“You’ve got to be careful, especially with mental health, just like with physical health, if you work with someone who uses the wrong exercises, the wrong techniques, the wrong strategies, you can actually make a moderate problem to a major problem,” said Kovacs. “It’s like bringing a plumber in to fix an electrical problem. They (the plumber) are highly qualified, but not in that.”

Finding Purpose Beyond The Baseline

In 2019, Anisimova was a rising teen sensation when, just days before the U.S. Open, her father, also her coach, died of a heart attack. Anisimova struggled and finally decided to address her mental health in 2023.

“I learned a lot about myself, my interests off the court and just taking some time to breathe and live a normal life for a bit,” said Anisimova.

Alcaraz and Anisimova found purpose and meaning outside of tennis, key for an athlete’s mental health.

“Some of them are playing for something, where some of them are playing as someone,” said Poole. “And so if they’re able to anchor their purpose to something bigger, like being a happy warrior or their family, cultural representation, or their personal values, whatever it is, those things we know, research wise, sustain motivation and help support long term mental wellness.”

This time last year, Amanda Anisimova was working her way back onto the tennis scene after taking an eight-month mental health break from the sport. 

She had just fallen in the final round of Wimbledon qualifying after plummeting to 189th in the world rankings.

It capped a rather tumultuous stretch that saw Anisimova struggle to regain her footing in the sport she had dedicated her whole life to. The sport she shared with her father, Konstantin Anisimov, whose passing from a heart attack at 52 in 2019 impacted her greatly. 

But the former teenage sensation is now on the cusp of an all-time comeback.