Is this the first time in tennis history that a player has pulled out of a tournament only to change their mind and continue to compete? Well, the strange 2020 season is bringing that to the table as well. After announcing that she refuses to play her Western & Southern Open semifinal as a way to draw attention to racial injustice, Naomi Osaka states that she will play her match against Elise Mertens on Friday.
So what happened? Some people are saying that media, myself included, misinterpreted Osaka’s initial statement, as she supposedly didn’t say that she was pulling out of the tournament, rather she only said that she was not playing her semifinal on the initially-scheduled Thursday.