American Jessica Pegula, who is third in the singles world rankings and second in the doubles, is the latest leading WTA Tour player to feature in a BBC Sport column.<\/em><\/p>\n In her latest piece at the French Open, Pegula discusses players not attending open news conferences after Belarusian second seed Aryna Sabalenka decided to skip another one.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n A hot topic again at this year’s French Open has been players not speaking to the media after matches to protect their mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n On Sunday night, Aryna Sabalenka pulled out of doing a post-match open news conference for the second round running after <\/span>saying she did not feel safe<\/span><\/a> in a previous one.<\/span><\/p>\n Two years ago there was a similar issue when Naomi Osaka did not want to speak to the media to protect her mental health.<\/span><\/p>\n I guess the French Open are now being more empathetic about players’ mental health needs surrounding press conferences.<\/span><\/p>\n What Naomi did alerted people to the possibility of doing what Sabalenka did and for the tournament to work ways around it. <\/span><\/p>\n Sabalenka still found a way to do press, giving quotes to the Women’s Tennis Association, which were then distributed to other reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n She has been hammered with questions about the war in Ukraine and Belarus’ support of Russia. <\/span><\/p>\n She clearly felt enough was enough. I think that’s her right.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s the right of the press to ask the questions they want to ask, but also it is her right not to answer them if she doesn’t want to answer them.<\/span><\/p>\n After I had a really tough loss in the singles on Friday, I was not really in the mood to speak to the media.<\/span><\/p>\n Luckily there was only one person who asked for a couple of quotes so I gave them to the WTA anyway without having to do an open news conference.<\/span><\/p>\n I think the tournament is now more flexible because of what happened with Naomi. That’s a good thing.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, speaking to the media is important for growing the sport and connecting with fans. We wouldn’t want to lose that.<\/span><\/p>\n But it has to be the right balance and the player has to feel safe.<\/span><\/p>\n It’s been a long trip here in Europe and, <\/span>as I described in my previous column,<\/span><\/a> it has not been the easiest. <\/span><\/p>\n But, since <\/span>losing to Elise Mertens in the singles third round<\/span><\/a>, it has been nice to get a couple of wins in the doubles alongside my regular partner Coco Gauff.<\/span><\/p>\n That’s helped me snap out of the little bit of a lull. It always feels nice to get some redemption.<\/span><\/p>\n I think getting back on the court as quickly as possibly is the best thing to do, sometimes you can get down and stuck in a negative attitude – at least for me. <\/span><\/p>\nHow doubles with Coco gets me out of a lull<\/h3>\n
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