Tennis star Venus Williams never suffered at press conferences. Know why!

After the tennis fiasco surrounding

mental health

happened after rising star

Naomi Osaka

pulled out of French Open, the debate has opened. Naomi Osaka's withdrawal from French Open puts a spotlight on the media mandate which players go through. Constant monitoring and criticism affects players' mental health.


Naomi Osaka recently expressed that post-match media inquiries were harmful to her mental health and equated them to "kicking a person when they're down".

In a post match conference, when asked about her own experience, tennis star

Venus

Wiiliams addressed the issue. She has never suffered at

press conferences

, telling French Open reporters: "I know every person asking me a question cannot play as well as me". The 40-year-old said she had her own defence mechanism, developed over a career which has yielded seven majors.


"So no matter what you say or what you write, you'll never light a candle to me. So that's how I deal with it. But each person deals with it differently", was her stark response to media criticism.

Her star sister

Serena Williams

also reiterated the point and said, "Venus said it best".


Twitterati were quick to respond to the sisters. Check out the responses:






With inputs from AFP