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    How Women’s Soccer Is Embracing Mental Health

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    Elite soccer didn’t always welcome players’ requests for help. Scandals, attitudes and support programs are changing that.The one thing she could not do, Sinead Farrelly knew, was talk. Nobody had ever told her that explicitly, of course. It was just something she understood. Soccer, her first time around, operated under what she can now call a “culture of silence.”The perceived delicacy of the sport meant that principle applied publicly almost as a matter of policy. Only a little more than a decade ago, Farrelly and her peers playing in professional leagues — first the W.P.S. and then, after its dissolution, the incipient N.W.S.L — did so keenly aware of their own mortality.“You want fans to come so the league can survive,” Farrelly said. “You can’t be sharing how bad it is or what the conditions are really like. You have to put on a show for the development of sport. You owe it to yourself, your teammates, future generations.” It felt, to her, like “living a double life.”Something darker held the omertà in place privately, among the players themselves. Years later, Farrelly would feel strong enough to tell the world what she had endured: years of psychological torment and allegations of coercive sex at the hands of the coach to whom she felt she owed her career.Her voice would bring about substantive change. The coach, Paul Riley, would receive a lifetime ban; her account would act as a prompt for the Yates Report, with its damning findings revealing a “league in which abuse and misconduct — verbal and emotional abuse and sexual misconduct — had become systemic.”At the time the abuse was happening, though, Farrelly did not feel that she could tell anyone what she was going through, not even her teammates. Perhaps part of that, she said, can be explained by her nature. Now, looking back, she is frank and open and disarmingly, breezily honest. Back then, she said, she was not “comfortable with being vulnerable.”But part of it, too, was a shared sense that saying something brings it into the world, gives it a shape and a form. “Opening those gates would have been too much,” she said, not just for her, but for her teammates as well. “You kind of operate on autopilot. You do not look at how dark it is. You kind of know that once you see something, you can’t unsee it.”It took a car accident for Farrelly to come to terms with her experiences. Recovering from her injuries required weeks “in a dark room, alone with myself,” she said. In those circumstances, there is only so much you can do to distract yourself. It speaks volumes that, now, she describes herself as “grateful” for the crash, which is probably the best gauge of the severity of what she had endured.It allowed her to identify a solution, a way to rebuild herself, and her life. She left soccer entirely. She did not kick a ball. She did not think about it. For seven years, she put that part of herself away.Elite soccer has an uneven, uneasy relationship with mental health. It is, as the United States defender Naomi Girma put it, extremely good at “calls to action.” The sport knows that there are performance benefits to players’ being able to cope with the pressures under which they are operating. A generous interpretation would have it that soccer understands on some level that the same logic probably applies outside the tightly guarded boundaries of its universe.It is less good at the action itself, the walking of the walk. The problem is not so much structural as essential. Elite sport is unapologetically cutthroat, inherently Darwinian.Players are not only competing with opponents but also with each other: for roster spots, for prominence, for fame and glory. Coaches are conditioned to weigh players for strength and weakness, whether that is technical or physical or mental. In that environment, showing any sort of vulnerability is — to put it mildly — disincentivized.Naomi Girma, No. 15, in a game against China in December.Rebecca Blackwell/Associated PressAnd so, even as clubs have in recent years recognized the obvious benefits of sports psychology, they have found another problem. Installing a psychologist at a training ground is one thing; convincing the players that entering that office is not a way of signaling to your teammates and your coach that you are struggling is quite another.Girma’s career thus far has been a rapid one — the top pick in the N.W.S.L. draft in 2022, she was the N.W.S.L. rookie of the year last season and U.S. Soccer’s women’s player of the year in 2023 — but it is still a relatively young one: Girma has only been a professional for two years.Still, though, she has encountered the idea that a capacity to tolerate pressure can be characterized as “grit,” a quality a player needs as much as pace or vision. “It is starting to shift a little,” she said. “Plenty of players work with sports psychologists. It’s normalized to talk, and to get help.”She attributes that in part to the willingness of clubs to pursue anything that looks even remotely like a marginal gain — her N.W.S.L. team, the San Diego Wave, employs a “wellness coach” — but believes the example set by athletes like Simone Biles is possibly even more influential.“To see someone like her, the best gymnast in the world, talking about her mental health shows that it doesn’t mean you can’t perform,” Girma said.The change, though, has been piecemeal, and delicate. Driven by the loss of one of her closest friends — Katie Meyer, a teammate at Stanford — to suicide in 2022, Girma has long believed a different approach was needed: not just something more systemic, but something more organic. She concluded it had to come from the players.“Teams create families,” she said. “You want people to feel as though they have a support system. Not necessarily from the whole group, but a couple of players within it who you can feel you can turn to when you need it.”Her answer will take shape this weekend, in a quiet hotel overlooking San Diego Bay. Girma, Farrelly and Becky Sauerbrunn, the longtime U.S. women’s team captain, will be among 20 players — including at least one from all 14 N.W.S.L. clubs — and a number of grass-roots organizations to attend Create the Space, a mental health retreat organized by Common Goal.Given that most, if not all, of the guests are less than a week away from reporting for preseason training, it should not be a surprise that a couple of practice sessions have been scheduled.The emphasis, though, will be on a different type of training. There will be classes, designed in conjunction with E-Motion, a community-focused counseling organization, on learning how to cope with loss, injury and retirement. The participants will be taught techniques drawn from movement therapy and somatic yoga.“We did not want to offer just one prescribed way of doing things,” said Lilli Barrett-O’Keefe, the executive director at Common Goal USA. “It was about showing the players various different ways and seeing what works for them.”Girma was named U.S. Soccer’s women’s player of the year this week.Abe Arredondo/Usa Today Sports, via Reuters ConThe selection of players invited was deliberately broad. Some are at the start of their careers, on the eve of their debut seasons as professionals. Others are at the autumn of theirs, beginning to confront the thought of life after soccer. Some have been affected by grief, others by injury. All, like the league itself, are still coming to terms with the widespread allegations of sexual abuse initially prompted by Farrelly’s allegations and then the reckoning of the Yates Report.The ambition is not only to help those in attendance, but to use it as a springboard “to start to shift the culture throughout the league,” Girma said.The best way to do that, Common Goal argues, is through the players. According to the organization’s research, players tend not to turn to family or friends outside soccer for support but to look inward, to their teammates. “It is a way of reclaiming power,” said Barrett-O’Keefe. “It is a way of saying, ‘I can help myself, and I can help my teammates.’”In the summer of 2022, Farrelly decided to go back to the game. She was not entirely sure she felt ready. She was afraid of any number of things: that she might not be good enough, that she might let herself down, that she might let other people down. “I’m comfortable being small,” she said. “There’s a part of my brain that is there to protect me from being hurt.”She knew, though, that at 33 she would not have another chance, and so she took the risk. She started training with Gotham F.C. She impressed enough to be given a contract. Within a year, she would be playing in her first World Cup.It has not been as easy as that timeline makes it sound. Farrelly has never regretted her decision to return to soccer, she said, but there were times when she was “crying every day,” when she was not sure if she could be what she once was, when the highs and the lows threatened to “overwhelm her.”This time, though, the culture had shifted. At Gotham, she could speak. Not just to her psychologist and her somatic therapist, but to other players. She could speak to her teammates about the fact she was using a psychologist. “I had to open up and be vulnerable,” she said. “At times, that meant having a vulnerability hangover, but I’m grateful for it.”Silence had forced her from the game; filling it helped her find her way back. She now believes, ardently, in sharing that with her peers and her successors. “We live in a society that teaches us that we are in competition with each other, that for one to succeed, someone else has to fail,” she said. “But we are starting to see what we can do if we lift each other up, instead.”Who Do You Think You Are? Franz Beckenbauer?Franz Beckenbauer won the World Cup with West Germany in 1974.Associated PressOnly two players — I think; this newsletter is always prepared to be corrected — have been afforded the ultimate honor of having their names attached to what might be described as an act of soccer. Johan Cruyff has his eponymous turn. Antonin Panenka is remembered every time anyone chips a penalty.There are others, of course, but they do not transcend either geographical or generational borders. Some will label a pirouette a Zidane turn; others might attribute it to Diego Maradona. Fans of a certain age will understand what is meant by a Blanco hop, but the meaning will be lost on younger (or older) audiences.It is probably as good a tribute as any to Franz Beckenbauer, then, that while he is not synonymous with a single move, he will forever be associated with a certain style. As the British broadcaster Mark Chapman pointed out this week, long after Beckenbauer had retired, players gracefully carrying the ball out from the defensive line were credited with/accused of behaving like Beckenbauer, something that will likely — hopefully — continue after his death this week at age 78.The Long HangoverIn one light, Napoli can be forgiven its precipitous decline this season. It was, you will remember, the most compelling soccer story of (at least) the first half of 2023: a club, and a city, breathlessly anticipating the end of a three-decade wait for an Italian championship. So ecstatic were the celebrations that it is no real surprise their aftereffects have lingered.In another light, though, this season is a source of some regret. The team that finally delivered Naples its first post-Diego Maradona title was one of those moments of happenstance: a set of players and a coach who dovetailed perfectly.Since then, Napoli has made a series of eminently avoidable errors. The club had an opportunity to build from a position of strength, but instead made poor coaching appointments — twice — and spent not inconsiderable amounts of money, poorly, in the transfer market. It is currently ninth in Serie A, and will struggle to return to the Champions League next season. The party, as it turned out, was all too brief. Still, at least it was a good one.Flares at Napoli, where the fire has gone.Marco Bertorello/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCorrespondenceThe first weekend in January is, you will know, historically reserved for two of English soccer’s great traditions: the third round of the F.A. Cup; and talking about the waning, or otherwise, of the magic of the F.A. Cup.“It seems all of the big clubs are desperate to avoid cup replays, which used to be one of the highlights for the fans,” Henry Brown obliges. “But with the overload on the players these days, the reticence is understandable. Nonetheless, the financial bonus for the little guy is more essential than ever, and it would mean a huge step down if this glorious tradition were changed.”There are a couple of things here. The first is that, increasingly, the idea that it is only the major teams who disdain the F.A. Cup is outdated; clubs from the second-tier Championship seem — understandably, given that league’s hectic schedule — to regard it with even more contempt.Bristol City’s 1-1 draw at West Ham felt more like a victory, since it earned the Robins a lucrative replay at home on Tuesday.Adrian Dennis/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe second is that a lot of the discourse around the F.A. Cup ignores the salient fact that its primacy for previous generations can at least in part be traced to the role of television. Of course the cup occupied a position of unusual prominence for decades: For roughly half a century, it was the only soccer televised live in Britain. (We may return to this subject.)But most of all, we should be absolutely clear that there can be no clearer proof that the financial model of English soccer is fundamentally broken than the fact that there is no greater economic reward available to a whole swath of clubs than obtaining first an arbitrary meeting with and then drawing a game against one of the elite. If the big clubs want to abolish replays, they should perhaps start by contributing more to the monetary well-being of everyone else. More

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      Naomi Osaka Makes U.S. Open Return. But Not for Tennis.

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      Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam singles champion, has taken breaks from tennis for her mental health and to start a family, but she is aiming to compete again in 2024.Naomi Osaka didn’t bring any rackets with her when she arrived at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Wednesday afternoon. Osaka had no plans to play tennis.“For me, coming back here, it means a lot,” Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam singles champion, said. “It’s like seeing an old friend that you haven’t seen in a long time.”Osaka was speaking in the main news conference room on Wednesday inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. She knows it well. It’s where she got to field questions from reporters on some of her best occasions, like her U.S. Open championships in 2018 and 2020. It’s also where she has been during low moments, including a first-round exit at last year’s tournament.“There were some tears shed,” Osaka said about the room. “A lot.”On Wednesday, Osaka had returned for a panel with Michael Phelps, the American swimmer who stands as the most decorated Olympian ever; Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general; and Dr. Brian Hainline, the chief medical officer of the N.C.A.A. and the chairman of the United States Tennis Association board.Michael Phelps, the decorated Olympic swimmer, said in the past he trained more intensely instead of reaching out for help with mental health issues.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesThe topic of the panel, mental health and sports, is one that Osaka has spoken about often since she cited mental health concerns in her withdrawal from the French Open in 2021. Her exit then led to a break from tennis.Osaka, who turned pro in 2013 as a teenager and came to be seen as the heir apparent to Serena Williams, is away from tennis now, too. In January she announced she was pregnant but planned to play in the 2024 Australian Open. She gave birth to her daughter in July, calling it on Instagram “a cool little intermission.”On Wednesday, Osaka, 25, said she had plenty of time to reflect during her most recent leave from the sport.“It definitely made me appreciate a lot of things that I took for granted,” she said.Osaka did not say when she planned to return to tennis during the panel, but she later told ESPN in an interview that she had designs on playing in 2024, adding that she has been training and should be hitting balls soon.Speaking back in that room, Osaka alluded to the idea of having a long career.“I just remember watching the Australian Open and being very devastated because I’ve never missed an Australian Open,” Osaka said. But while watching, Osaka said, she thought about how late Serena and Venus Williams played into their careers.Serena Williams, who retired at last year’s U.S. Open, played until she was 40. Venus Williams, 43, played at this year’s tournament, losing in the first round of singles.“I was thinking I probably no way will ever play at their age,” Osaka said. “But sitting here, I’m like, you know what? I might do that.”Osaka said pregnancy gave her a lot of time to think, and that she felt isolated at times. She had to force herself to ask for help.“I actually felt lonely during my pregnancy just because I felt like I wasn’t able to do a lot of things,” she said.She added: “Normally I’m thinking, ‘If I’m going to be an independent woman, then I’m not going to ask anyone for help. Whenever something happens, just take it on the chin.’ But then I got to a place where I needed to ask for help.”For decades, many athletes have been reluctant to share their struggles with their mental health. It’s especially the case for professionals, whose jobs require them to push their bodies to perform at the highest level. But in recent years, athletes have gradually become more open about discussing mental health. Besides Osaka, they include the gymnast Simone Biles, the basketball star Kevin Love, and, in tennis, Amanda Anisimova, the young American once ranked in the top 25 who in May cited mental health concerns in deciding to step away from the sport.Among Olympians, Phelps has also led a push to speak out on mental health.Osaka spoke on a panel with Michael Phelps, third from left; Dr. Vivek Murthy, left, the surgeon general; and Brian Hainline, fourth from left, the chief medical officer of the N.C.A.A. and the chair of the United States Tennis Association board.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesPhelps, who has also faced mental health issues, said that, like for Osaka, working through those problems required realizing he had to reach out and ask for help.“I learned that I couldn’t do it all by myself,” Phelps said.After winning six gold medals at the 2004 Athens Games, Phelps entered what he described as a “post-Olympics depression.” But instead of reaching out to someone for help, Phelps said, he compartmentalized his issues by swimming and training more.It wasn’t until about 2014, Phelps said, when he hit a “breaking point.”“I decided that something had to change,” he said. “So for me, I had to become vulnerable for the first time in my life.While Osaka didn’t say exactly when she’ll play again, when she returns the difficulties of life on tour will follow, such as time away from family and the pressure of competing in an individualistic sport. But this time, Osaka said she will be more comfortable seeking help when she needs it.Osaka said that she had two friends she counts on when she is dealing with loneliness.“I know I can reach out to them at any time, and I think it’s really important,” she said. “You’re not alone in anything.” More

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      Naomi Osaka Returns to the Court at Australian Open

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      On Dec. 31, as the final hours of 2021 ticked away, Naomi Osaka wrote on Twitter: “I’ve never been more excited for a year to be over.”Osaka, who had not played a competitive tennis match since losing in the third round of the U.S. Open to the world’s 73rd-ranked player, was getting a jump on the start of 2022 in Melbourne, Australia, after her second lengthy break from the game in seven months. And who could blame her.In the 10 months since she won her fourth Grand Slam title, in Australia, her destiny had gone from can’t-miss superstardom to something far more concerning.As last winter closed, Osaka was the dominant figure in her sport and the world’s highest paid female athlete at just 23 years old, as well as a respected voice on social justice issues. And then she became something else entirely.“There was a time after the French Open where I felt like everyone was judging me,” she said after her first-round win at the Australian Open Monday. “It feels a bit weird when you go into a stadium to play and you’re kind of concerned what everyone’s gaze means.”Her game began to unravel in the early spring, especially as the competition moved to clay, where she has never been comfortable. A confrontation with French Open officials over her refusal to appear at mandatory postmatch news conferences led to her withdrawal from the tournament. She went public with her yearslong battle with depression, took two months off, then returned at the Tokyo Olympics, where she lit the torch but lost in the third round amid relentless pressure to excel.Osaka lighting the Olympic torch in Tokyo in July.James Hill for The New York TimesThen came the upset in the U.S. Open, where she was a favorite to successfully defend her title, but exited with a tearful admission that playing tennis no longer made her happy, if it ever did. Suddenly, that moment of triumph at the 2020 U.S. Open felt ominous: After prevailing in three sets, she barely smiled and instead lay in the center of the court, staring at the dark sky.“It was just like an extreme buildup, and you just happened to see it all release last year,” a rusty Osaka said this month, after her first tuneup match in Melbourne, a messy three-set win over Alizé Cornet.Osaka grew sharper, and calmer, in her next two matches, both straight-set wins, then pulled out of the warm-up tournament ahead of her semifinal, saying her body was in shock after playing three matches in five days after a layoff that she had expected to last much longer.“I actually really thought I wasn’t going to play for most of this year,” she said. “I was feeling kind of like I didn’t know what my future was going to be. I’m pretty sure a lot of people can relate to that.”In some ways, relating to Osaka, who plays Madison Brengle in the second round at the Australian Open on Wednesday, has never been easier. Her story — though no one knows how it will end — is a cautionary tale for anyone pursuing a dream that may not be her own or for anyone who needs to press the pause button, regardless of the consequences.Despite her vast wealth and early success, or perhaps because of them, she has never seemed more vulnerable. And yet there will always be a remove with Osaka, who can be painfully shy, a kind of wall that even people who have been close to her have struggled to break through. That has only gotten more difficult as her persona has grown, because so have the barriers and the team of gatekeepers surrounding her as the pressures of success and fame mount.Osaka tossed her racket in frustration during her loss at the 2021 U.S. Open.Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times“In some ways, this all can be easier with a more outgoing person,” said Harold Solomon, the former pro who coached Osaka when she was a teenager. “Naomi is quiet and introspective. I’m not sure if she was really clear of what all of this would mean.”Now, back in Australia, the place where things last appeared right in her world, is she ready for the crucible? Even if she prevails, in matches, in the biggest tournaments, is that an appropriate way to measure the success and well-being of someone who just four months ago could not find joy on a tennis court? Is this really the life Osaka wants?Osaka, a self-described introvert, rarely grants interviews. She speaks in tightly controlled settings or postmatch news conferences during tournaments, where she has said she would prefer not to appear. (It’s also possible that her complaints about news conferences were merely a vessel for her larger complaints about the life of a pro tennis player.)Her parents, including her father, Leonard Francois, who pushed his daughters to pursue tennis, following the blueprint of Richard Williams, no longer speak publicly. Osaka declined through her representatives to be interviewed for this article. Behind microphones, she communicates deliberately, in clipped phrases that are turned over and over. When she has emoted, it has usually been on Instagram or Twitter.Osaka at the French Open before she withdrew form the tournament over concerns about her mental health.Pete Kiehart for The New York TimesSascha Bajin, who coached Osaka to her first two Grand Slam titles, at the 2018 U.S. Open and the 2019 Australian Open, said he initially had to figure out how to get her to trust him enough to participate in the most basic communication.“Naomi was so shy in the beginning, she didn’t even talk,” he said in a recent interview. Bajin noticed that she liked anime. So he began watching it, and learning about it, then made casual references to it before or after practice, which began to draw her out. “She saw that I showed interest in something that interested her. With Naomi it takes trust and belief.”Never celebrated winning points or games.There is a very basic and fair question to ask when considering Osaka’s career: Does she actually like tennis? Did she ever?“Yeaahhh?” Solomon said in a singsong, the way people intonate when they are not quite convinced of what they are saying.Solomon was one of several South Florida coaches who shared his services at little or no cost to help Francois fulfill his dream of producing the next iteration of Venus and Serena Williams.Mari, who is 18 months older than Naomi and as free with her emotions as Naomi is bottled up, initially had more drive to achieve stardom, Solomon and the other coaches said. She ultimately lacked the size, speed and power of her younger sister, who at 5 feet 11 inches is about a half-foot taller. Mari Osaka’s singles ranking peaked at 280 in 2018. She retired last year.Mari, left, and Naomi Osaka played doubles in 2017.Koji Watanabe/Getty ImagesHer younger sister’s motivations were more of a mystery.Bill Adams, who coached the girls when the family first moved to Florida from New York in 2006, said Naomi Osaka was tough to read even as a 10-year-old. She never refused to do a drill or “made a face,” Adams said, but she never celebrated good shots or winning points or games. A dozen years later, Adams ran into Osaka at the Evert Tennis Academy after she won the Indian Wells Masters, the first significant title of her career.“I told her I was pleased because I didn’t think you really liked it in the beginning,” Adams said.For years, the coaches said, beating her older sister was Osaka’s primary motivation. Once that became possible, her dreams expanded. Patrick Tauma, who coached the Osaka girls when Naomi was in her midteens, said he once asked her what she dreamed of accomplishing on the tennis court. She told him it was to beat Serena Williams in the final of the U.S. Open.She accomplished that in 2018, but the win was somewhat tarnished by Williams’s meltdown amid confrontations with the chair umpire, who penalized her for receiving coaching during the match. At the trophy ceremony, Osaka was in tears.“I feel like she lost her purpose,” Tauma said. “She is so young. It all went so fast for her.”Osaka after her first Grand Slam event title, beating her idol and rival, Serena Williams, in 2018.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesOsaka’s relationship with Solomon, who coached her when she was 16, was less harmonious. It ended not long after he questioned her definition of working hard, every day. He said the dynamic of their relationship was backward, with the coach pulling the student instead of the other way around.“I’m not saying it wasn’t there at times, but to bring out the full potential, you need to do that on a consistent basis,” Solomon said. “She was young, I was maybe too impatient, but I’m not going to spend time on the court with you if you are not willing to do that.”Work, wins, and then a crash.Clearly, Osaka figured out how to work hard consistently enough to win four Grand Slam titles, but eventually winning offered relief rather than happiness or fulfillment, despite the money, fame and platform that it also gave her.Did she understand everything that would come with her success on the court, Tauma wondered — the heat of the spotlight, the obligations to sponsors, the weight of being a symbol of a new, more multicultural and open Japan?A supporter with a Japanese flag cheered Osaka during her opening match.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“She just wants to be a tennis player,” Tauma said. “Now she is a money machine. All these people working around her like a company. She feels like I am not a player anymore.”In the fall, he reached out to Osaka’s team and offered to spend a little time on the court with her as a way of getting back to her roots and remembering the good things about the game and “the smell of when you were starving.” Tauma never heard back.At the time, Osaka was busy with things she did not get to do growing up, like driving from her home in Los Angeles to the Bay Area to have sleepovers.“I didn’t really have that many friends, so I didn’t really talk to anyone,” she said.Eventually her desire to be on the court once more returned. She texted her coach and trainer and asked if they would be willing to work with her again. “I was just sitting in my house wondering, what do I want to do in the future?” she said. During her first practices, she tried to be acutely aware of whether she wanted to be there, whether she could be fully committed in each moment, because if she did not, she knew she was wasting everyone’s time.“I’m not sure if this is going to work out well,” she said this month in Melbourne.Osaka was mostly solid in her first-round win over Camila Osorio of Spain. She said that she often feels happy starting the year in Australia. Whether she can stay that way is anyone’s guess.Osaka entered Rod Laver Arena on Day 1 of the 2022 Australian Open.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times More

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      Mardy Fish Can Relate to What Naomi Osaka Is Going Through

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      Anxiety forced Fish to withdraw from the 2012 U.S. Open. Now he is open about his mental health and works with the U.S.T.A. to provide more resources for players.The fourth-round singles matches at the U.S. Open were underway on Sunday, and Mardy Fish, the Davis Cup captain and former tennis star, was remembering the moment nine years ago in New York when he sat in the car sobbing with his wife, Stacey, and decided, with her help, that he could not play in the fourth round against Roger Federer.“It was just crazy anxiety, crazy, crazy, just how am I going to walk out on this court?” he said by telephone from his home in Los Angeles. “But it never, never would have crossed my mind, if my wife wasn’t there with me, that I wouldn’t play. We’re so trained to never show weakness, never show fear, to the other side of the court. But my wife saying, ‘Well, you don’t have to play’ — that part right there was like, right away, just instantly, I felt better, like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.”Fish is now 39, a parent with Stacey of two young children. He works in finance and is still involved in professional tennis as the U.S. Davis Cup captain. But he is also a mentor, sharing his experience as a prominent athlete who had to deal with mental health problems when the subject was close to taboo in professional sports.“The reason why I’m so vocal or open about it now is that I didn’t have that success story to lean on when I was going through it,” he said.He is friendly with Naomi Osaka and her agent Stuart Duguid, and empathized when Osaka announced tearfully on Friday after her third-round defeat at the U.S. Open that she planned to take an indefinite break from the game that no longer brings her joy, even when she wins.“I would tell her, do whatever makes you happy,” Fish said. “She doesn’t have to hit another tennis ball the rest of her life, and if that makes her happy, that’s what she should do. I think she would regret that, but it’s whatever makes her want to get up in the morning and be happy. And whatever she’s been doing for the last couple months, or however long it’s been, is not doing that for her right now. So hopefully she finds peace and comfort.”Fish spent months housebound with repeated anxiety attacks after his withdrawal in New York. He received therapy and medication.After playing intermittently on tour, he returned to the U.S. Open in 2015 and won a round. It was the upbeat closure that he desired and is part of the journey he shares in a documentary that will be released on Tuesday as part of the Netflix “Untold” series.“To educate is really the most important thing,” Fish said. “To try to reach people that have never understood mental health or had issues with it or people around them who have had issues with it. To just educate them and just understand that Naomi Osaka is not going to pull out of the French Open just because she doesn’t want to talk to the press. And Simone Biles is not going to compete in the Olympics just because she doesn’t want to lose. The people that think that, and there are lots of them, it’s just unfortunate.”For Fish, one of the keys is to stop regarding mental health as separate from physical health.“It’s just health,” Fish said. “They call it mental health, but your brain is part of your body. It’s an injury. You just can’t see it.”Long considered one of the most talented players of his era, Fish improved his fitness and broke through in 2011 to reach the top 10 and qualify for the eight-man tour championships. But he said his rise also created new expectations and stresses.“My life changed, for the better initially, and then just my body and brain, the way I’m put together, couldn’t handle it,” he said.In 2012, he began experiencing a racing heartbeat that would wake him in the middle of the night and was diagnosed as a form of arrhythmia. Though he was treated for the condition, the underlying issue was an anxiety disorder, and while playing tennis was a refuge, he also began experiencing panic during his third-round win over Gilles Simon at the 2012 U.S. Open.“It was like my only comfort was taken away from me that night and it put me into basically rock bottom, zero serotonin left in my brain,” he said.“It’s not about being tough. I practice kickboxing and muay Thai right now, like, come on, I’ll take anyone on in the ring. You can punch me in the face all you want, and I’ll hit you back. I train that stuff. It’s not about being weak. I was strong mentally. I was a bulldog. To win, I would have sacrificed anything. I’ll put my competitiveness up against anyone’s. It’s not about that. It’s actually the opposite. Showing weakness and that vulnerability is actually showing strength, in my opinion.” Fish is working as a mentor during the U.S. Open as part of a new initiative from the United States Tennis Association to provide more mental health resources for players, including on-call psychologists. Claudia Reardon, the U.S.T.A.’s new mental health consultant, is overseeing the program.Mardy Fish walked off the court after losing to Feliciano López in five sets at the 2015 U.S. Open.Chang W. Lee/The New York Times“Athletes who talk about their own use of mental health resources or their own struggles with mental health symptoms or disorders really do a wonderful service to sport in general in terms of demystifying and normalizing that experience,” Reardon said in an interview. “To have mental health symptoms is not incompatible with high-level sports, and it’s actually a sign of strength to reach out for help.”Fish said no player had yet contacted him during the tournament, but he said “tons of people” had contacted him since he began speaking openly about his condition.“People you’ve heard of; people you’ve never heard of,” he said. “Coaches, players, from tennis and other sports. It’s been really nice to be helpful in that way. I’ve made some great relationships because of it, so it’s been comforting in that way, to know I wasn’t alone and that other people wanted to be vulnerable as well, just not to the world.”Osaka, like Fish, has taken a more open approach, revealing this year that she struggled with anxiety and depression since winning her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2018 U.S. Open. In a round-table discussion before this year’s Open, she, Fish, Nick Kyrgios and Billie Jean King talked about multiple topics, including mental health and media relations.Though Osaka spoke before and during the Open about her desire to focus on the positives of being a world-class player, she struggled with her emotions in her loss on Friday to the Canadian teenager Leylah Fernandez. She tossed her racket and knocked a ball into the stands in frustration and then teared up at a news conference. She said she did not know when she would play her next tennis match.“Recently, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” she said. “I feel more like relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad, and I don’t think that’s normal.”Fish was watching and listening.“That last press conference was her being really open,” he said. “I think it’s really important to put yourself first and what you feel is important to you and what makes you happy, and hopefully tennis is in there for her. I think it is. I know she understands her place in history. But the stuff outside the court has now gotten to her more than just wins and losses, and it’s unfortunate, but it’s important for her to make sure she feels comfortable again and happy again.” More

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      Even for the Greatest Players, Life in Tennis Can Be a Slog

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      Naomi Osaka is taking an indefinite break from tennis as she struggles to find meaning and joy from playing. It’s a sadly familiar script for the sport.The moment resonated with nearly every player who has ever picked up a racket, and especially those who have reached the pinnacle of tennis.A tearful Naomi Osaka sat behind a microphone late on Friday night and spoke of how the sport she has so dominated at times has become a joyless binary journey between relief after victories and sadness following losses. There is no contentment, no happiness.Then came what may be her last public words for some time.“I think I’m going to take a break from playing for a while,” she said.How long is anyone’s guess. But while Osaka’s misery is her own — like the unhappiness of the unhappy families Tolstoy refers to at the start of Anna Karenina — tennis has seen this movie so many times before that an unavoidable question arises: What is it about this sport that makes so many of the best players in the world, a collection of athletes seemingly swaddled in wealth and fame and glory, so intolerably miserable?“I think with anything you’re passionate about, it’s always a love/hate relationship, because you want that thing so bad all the time, you want to be perfect,” Bianca Andreescu, the Canadian star who won the U.S. Open the first time she played it in 2019 but has battled injuries, inconsistency and the frustrations that come with both ever since, said after her third-round win Saturday. “In my case, it’s tennis.”Careers cut short because of broken minds rather than aging bodies haunt tennis like ghosts.Bjorn Borg of Sweden, a superstar of the 1970s and winner of 11 Grand Slam titles, lost his fourth U.S. Open final in 1981. He walked off the court, drove away in his car, and never played another Grand Slam tournament again. He was 25. Steffi Graf, the winner of 22 Grand Slam singles titles, quit at 30, just weeks after a French Open title and a Wimbledon final, saying she had lost her motivation and passion for the game. Andre Agassi and Jennifer Capriati succumbed to drug abuse and, in Capriati’s case, addiction, though they managed to mount comebacks.More recently, Paula Badosa of Spain has spoken of her battles with depression brought on in part by the frustrations and pressures of the game. Iga Swiatek of Poland, who won the 2020 French Open at 19, spoke after a recent loss of seeing little other than tennis balls when she closed her eyes at night. After losing a hard-fought match at the Olympics she sobbed into a towel as though she had lost a close relative.Paula Badosa has spoken of her depression brought on by the pressures of the game.Aaron Doster/Associated PressAthletes in team sports talk about the joy that comes from being a part of something larger than themselves, of heading into battle surrounded by a band of brothers and sisters.Golfers play an individual sport filled with crushing frustrations, but they walk peaceful, beautiful grounds through a morning or afternoon, a caddie by their side lending advice and providing technical and emotional support. When they lose, the golf course gets the best of them.Tennis players and coaches speak of the singular form of intensity and loneliness that accompanies the game.From the time they are small children, tennis players run on hard, often hot, and sometimes sweltering courts for hours as a human on the other side of the net tries to pound them into exhaustion and defeat. And they do it alone, prohibited from communicating with anyone during the most important matches.They cross borders and time zones and oceans often from week to week during a grueling, 11-month season. Sometimes they compete at 11 o’clock in the morning. The next day they might start at 11 at night. Sleeping and eating schedules are discombobulated.Tennis players talk differently when they talk about losing. The player not holding the trophy at the end of a tournament does not come in second place, and semifinalists do not finish in third or fourth. Pro golfers who finished fourth often say they had a great week. Marathoners and swimmers talk about being on the podium.As Novak Djokovic, no stranger to tennis misery, said the other night, “We are a particular sport that only has one winner.”The coronavirus pandemic has only magnified pressures and pitfalls, and added another kind of loneliness. For more than a year, at most tournaments players have had to limit their movements to their hotels, practice courts and competition venues, passing long hours alone in soulless rooms. They are tested for Covid-19 every few days, always one swab away from a 10-day isolation far from home.Daria Abramowicz, a sports psychologist who travels with Swiatek, said the sport in its modern form is an energy sucking journey of climbing the rankings ladder, defending your position, and cultivating fans, as well as sponsors, who can provide a financial safety net but bring their own demands.Daria Abramowicz, a sports psychologist, with Iga Swiatek in Australia in February.Alana Holmberg for The New York Times“If your tank is empty or almost empty, and if you feel burdened that there are a lot of challenges all around the performance, it is impossible to enjoy the process and enjoy this moment,” Abramowicz said.For better or worse, Osaka has taken on burdens.After the murder of George Floyd, she flew to Minneapolis to march with protesters. After the shooting of Jacob Blake, she single-handedly brought her sport to a standstill when she announced she would not play her semifinal match in the Western & Southern Open. She wore a mask with the name of a different victim of police violence onto the court for each of her matches at the U.S. Open last year.“She allows herself to really feel and experience that sadness,” said Pam Shriver, the former top player and Grand Slam doubles champion.In May, ahead of the French Open, Osaka tried to overturn years of tennis protocol when she refused to participate in post-match news conferences because she said they put too much stress on players, especially after losses. Her stance led to an ugly confrontation with tournament organizers and her withdrawal from the tournament after just one match.In Japan, where she has become a symbol of a new, multiracial vision of a traditionally homogeneous society, she embraced the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron and becoming the face of the Games. It was her first competition since the French Open.She has told the world about her battles with depression the past three years, a move that John McEnroe said took great courage. The seven-time Grand Slam winner, who 40 years later is still shaken by the sudden departure of Borg, his chief rival, said her candor probably helped countless people. McEnroe added that it may also make it harder for Osaka to thrive because of the increased attention it brings.“She’s the type of player we need around the sport another 10 years, that should win a bunch of more majors hopefully, if she’s in the right head space,” McEnroe said days before the start of the U.S. Open.After spending roughly two years on the pro tour with Swiatek, Abramowicz has concluded that players can survive careers — inevitably filled with losses and disappointment — only by working every day to build self-worth and self-confidence that is not measured by wins and rankings points but rather relationships. Only then can they find a way to enjoy the process, as enervating as it might be.“You need to maintain the core values, because without that there is nothing,” Abramowicz said. “There is just burned ground.” More

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      Naomi Osaka Beats Coco Gauff, Into the Round of 16 in Cincinnati

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      It was a reaffirming victory for Osaka, who dropped the first set but kept her composure and found a way to impose her power game on Coco Gauff.Down a set and a break of serve against Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka was in danger of making a quick exit at the Western and Southern Open in her return to the WTA Tour.But Osaka kept her composure, tinkered with her tactics, cut down on errors and found a way to impose her power game on the 17-year-old Gauff.Cracking groundstrokes and above all pounding decisive serves, the No. 2 seed Osaka came back to win 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and secure a spot in the round of 16 against Jil Teichmann of Switzerland.It was a reaffirming victory for Osaka, who has had an up-and-down season: winning her fourth Grand Slam singles title in February at the Australian Open and then withdrawing after one round at the French Open after her decision not to participate in required news conferences led to a clash with tournament officials.She skipped Wimbledon and then returned for the Olympics in Japan, the nation she represents. She became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron and then lost in the third round of women’s singles to Marketa Vondrousova, missing out on a medal.On Monday, before her opening match against Gauff, Osaka began to cry and briefly broke off her first news conference in nearly three months after thoughtfully answering a question about her relationship with the news media.But she was resolute down the stretch against Gauff on Wednesday, applauding some of Gauff’s best shots while producing plenty of highlights of her own.She lost just one point on her serve in the final set and finished off the victory, fittingly, with an ace.“I’ve had a really weird year,” Osaka said in her on-court interview. “I think some of you know what happened to me this year. I changed my mind-set a lot. Even if I lost, I would have felt that I’m a winner. There’s so much stuff going on in the world.”She said she had done a lot of reflection since her news conference on Monday.“I was wondering why was I was so affected I guess, like what made me not want to do media in the first place,” she said. “And then I was thinking and wondering if I was scared because sometimes I would see headlines of players losing and the headline the next day would be a ‘collapse’ or ‘they’re not that great anymore’. And so then I was thinking, me waking up every day I should feel like I’m winning. Like the choice to go out there and play, to go see fans, that people come out and watch me play, that itself is an accomplishment and I’m not sure when along the way I started desensitizing that and it started not being an accomplishment for me, so I felt I was very ungrateful on that fact.”Osaka remains committed to using her stardom to bring attention to causes that matter to her. Before the tournament, she announced that she would donate her prize money from the Western and Southern Open to disaster relief in Haiti, her father’s native country.“I’m not really doing that much,” she said on Monday. “I could do more. I’m trying to figure out what I could do and where exactly to put my energy, but I would say the prize-money thing is sort of the first thing I thought of that I could do that would raise the most awareness.”Osaka said the constraints of playing during the pandemic have worn on her.“I think definitely this whole Covid thing was very stressful with the bubbles and not seeing people and not having interactions,” she said. “But I guess seeing the state of the world, how everything is in Haiti and how everything is in Afghanistan right now is definitely really crazy and for me just to be hitting a tennis ball in the United States right now and have people come and watch me play is, I don’t know, like I would want to be myself in this situation rather than anyone else in the world.”Osaka has played relatively little tennis this season. Wednesday’s match was her first in a tour event since her first-round victory at the French Open in May. The Olympics, though prestigious, does not award ranking points and is not an official part of the tour.But hardcourts remain far and away Osaka’s best surface. Her Grand Slam titles have all come on hardcourts: two at the Australian Open and two at the U.S. Open, which will begin on Aug. 30 in New York.Osaka appeared to be having fun during her second-round match against Gauff.Aaron Doster/USA Today Sports, via Reuters“Of course I’d really love to win this tournament for the extra motivation I have giving an organization my prize money for Haiti,” she said on Monday. “But I accidentally saw my draw, so I know how hard it’s going to be.”Osaka had played Gauff twice before, defeating her 6-3, 6-0 in the third round of the 2019 U.S. Open and losing to her 6-3, 6-4 in the third round of the 2020 Australian Open, where she walked the streets of Melbourne afterward to try to work through her emotions.Wednesday’s match was long-form in comparison with their previous two, but it was still defined by full-cut shots and short rallies. Their longest exchange was just 11 strokes, and both players struggled with consistency on their returns.“I think coming off of Tokyo, coming here and playing her as my first opponent, she’s not really my favorite player to play,” Osaka said. “Mentally I think it’s the most straining to play against her.”But Osaka adjusted her return position on Gauff’s second serve early in the second set, moving back a few steps to give herself more time to react. It paid off with three service breaks, and though Osaka blew hot and cold, she was ultimately the more reliable player.She had three double faults to Gauff’s nine and 31 unforced errors to Gauff’s 45. Above all, as Gauff struggled to control her forehand, Osaka seemed at peace with the moment and the pressure, raising her game when she needed it most.“Just waking up in the morning is a win,” Osaka said. More

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      Naomi Osaka Struggles in Return to Tournament News Conferences

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      Osaka, who quit the French Open in May by saying press commitments worsened her anxiety, burst into tears and left the room after a question her agent said was asked “to intimidate.”Naomi Osaka’s return to the news conference format after a three-month hiatus went smoothly for three questions on Monday ahead of the Western & Southern Open in Mason, Ohio.But Osaka, the Japanese tennis star, ended up in tears after answering the fourth query, which came from Paul Daugherty, a sports columnist for The Cincinnati Enquirer. He questioned how she could balance her resistance to news conferences with the fact that her outside interests were “served by having a media platform.”Osaka soon left the room to compose herself while the camera in use for this remote interview session was switched off.She returned five minutes later.“Sorry for walking out,” she said before completing the news conference in shortened form.Her agent, Stuart Duguid, was upset.“The bully at The Cincinnati Enquirer is the epitome of why player/media relations are so fraught right now,” he said in a text message. “Everyone on that Zoom will agree that his tone was all wrong, and his sole purpose was to intimidate.”That was a matter of opinion. But the scene was without a doubt the latest sign of Osaka’s vulnerability, and the latest thought-provoking development in her 2021 season. She has played rarely — just six tournaments — but ignited plenty of conversation and debate: raising awareness about the mental health of athletes while challenging the established ways that they communicate with journalists.At the French Open in May, she made it clear she would decline to do pretournament or post-match news conferences, citing the need to preserve her well-being and avoid negative thoughts (she has struggled to adapt to the clay-court surface). But that uncommon stance created a clash with French Open and Grand Slam officials. Osaka was fined $15,000 for skipping her press commitments after her first-round victory, and was threatened with more fines and potential disqualification if she continued not to comply.It was a hard line, and she withdrew before her second-round match in Paris, explaining on social media that she did not want to become a distraction. She revealed that she had experienced depression since winning her first Grand Slam singles title at the 2018 United States Open.She returned to her home in Los Angeles and did not play again until the Olympics last month in Tokyo, where the American gymnastics star Simone Biles brought more visibility to the subject by withdrawing from several events after citing her own mental health issues. “I don’t trust myself as much as I used to,” Biles explained.Osaka said on Monday that she had texted Biles during the Games but had not spoken with her directly. “I sent her a message but I also want to give her space, because I know how overwhelming it can feel,” Osaka said.Osaka was asked whether she was “proud of being brave” in Paris.“In that moment I wasn’t really proud,” she answered. “I felt it was something I needed to do for myself, and more than anything I felt like I holed up in my house for a couple weeks, and I was a little bit embarrassed to go out because I didn’t know if people were looking at me in a different way than they usually did before. But I think the biggest eye-opener was going to the Olympics and having other athletes come up to me and say they were really glad I did what I did. So, after all that I’m proud of what I did, and I think it’s something that needed to be done.”No significant changes have been made yet to player-reporter interactions, which remain largely virtual because of the coronavirus pandemic. Players participated in post-match news conferences and interviews at Wimbledon, a major tournament that Osaka skipped.But there have been continuing discussions between Osaka and her team and WTA officials and other tennis administrators. Osaka decided to meet with the news media before her opening match at the Western & Southern Open, which is scheduled for Wednesday against either Coco Gauff or Hsieh Su-wei.Fans watching Osaka practice on Sunday.Rob Prange/ShutterstockThe news conference on Monday was Osaka’s first since she lost to Jessica Pegula in her opening match at the Italian Open on May 12. It was also Osaka’s first interview session since the Olympics, during which she took on a new dimension by becoming the first tennis player to light the cauldron. But she continued to struggle on court, losing in the third round to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.“The Tokyo Olympics, I’ve kind of been waiting for them for eight years almost, because I didn’t make it to the Rio one,” Osaka said of the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. “I felt everyone started asking me about the Tokyo Olympics every year from that point, so I feel very sad about how I did there but also a little bit happy I didn’t lose in the first round as well because I haven’t played.”Daugherty soon asked his question. “You are not crazy about dealing with us, especially in this format,” he said. “Yet you have a lot of outside interests that are served by having a media platform. I guess my question is, How do you balance the two?”Osaka hesitated and asked Daugherty: “When you say I’m not crazy about dealing with you guys, what does that refer to?”Daugherty answered, “Well, you’ve said you don’t especially like the news conference format, yet that seems to be obviously the most widely used means of communicating to the media and through the media to the public.”Osaka began to answer, speaking carefully. “I would say the occasion, like, when to do the press conferences, is what I feel is the most difficult,” she said, referring to their timing before making several long pauses and then declining an opportunity from the news conference moderator to move on to the next question.She asked Daugherty to repeat his query. “I can only speak for myself,” she said. “But ever since I was younger I have had a lot of media interest on me, and I think it’s because of my background, as well as how I play, because in the first place I’m a tennis player. That’s why a lot of people are interested in me, so I would say in that regards I am quite different to a lot of people. And I can’t really help that there are some things that I tweet or some things that I say that kind of create a lot of news articles or things like that.”Osaka said she was “not really sure how to balance the two” and said to Daugherty that she was “figuring it out at the same time as you are.”Then she began losing composure, wiping her eyes and lowering her visor as the next question was asked by another reporter, and she soon left the room. Osaka returned, but it remains unclear what approach she will take going forward.Ben Rothenberg More

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      At Wimbledon, Emma Raducanu’s Withdrawal Renews Focus on Well Being

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      The British teenager, a sudden sensation after making the fourth round, struggled with her breathing and retired from the match, a reminder of the intense pressures on elite athletes.WIMBLEDON, England — A day after the British teenager Emma Raducanu struggled to control her breathing and retired from her fourth-round match at Wimbledon, she was back on the BBC for an interview with the longtime host Sue Barker. More

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      At the U.S. Open, Matthew Wolff Is Having Fun Again

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      The promising young golfer took two months off the PGA Tour when he stopped enjoying the game and was worried about his mental health. He says he’s thrilled to be back.SAN DIEGO — For Matthew Wolff, rock bottom came in April when he was at the Masters, perhaps golf’s most cherished event, and was utterly miserable.“The entire time there my head was down and I hated it,” said Wolff, 22, who a year ago was the PGA Tour’s breakout star with a string of top finishes that vaulted him to 12th in the world rankings. “I didn’t enjoy it and it was hard for me. The Masters was pretty much the turning point.”Emboldened by other professional athletes who have talked this year about concerns for their mental health and the outsize expectations of their jobs, Wolff decided that he had to walk away from golf for nearly two months.“Seeing all these other athletes coming out and being like mental health is such an important thing and whether it’s something that’s going on personally or you’re not playing well or you’re not enjoying it,” Wolff said on Thursday after shooting a one-under par 70 in the first round of the U.S. Open at the Torrey Pines Golf Course. “I just needed to take a break.”It was Wolff’s first tournament since missing the cut at the Zurich Classic in late April.Wolff called the comments of athletes like the tennis star Naomi Osaka, who has recently discussed her issues with anxiety and depression, a primary inspiration for his decision to take time off from competition, and also for returning to the course.“Mental health is a really big problem and we play a lot of golf or we play a lot of games and any professional athlete has to deal with a lot more stress and pressure than most people,” he said. “And it just kind of got to me. But I’ve been working on it. I’ve been learning and I think that’s all I can do. It’s probably something I’ll be doing for most of my career but I’m feeling a lot better.“It’s been a help to know that others are talking about the same things I am — and I’ve gotten a ton of support from the fans out there. People were yelling, ‘It’s good to see you back, Matt.’ And that was great.”Wolff was 11-over par through two rounds at this year’s Masters then signed an incorrect scorecard and was disqualified. A few weeks before that, he had shot a first-round 83 at the World Golf Championship-Workday tournament and promptly withdrew without citing an injury, which is highly uncommon for tour players. That exit followed a first-round 78 and another withdrawal from the Farmers Insurance Open. Since late last season, Wolff has played in 10 successive tournaments without finishing in the top 25.Moreover, Wolff’s countenance had changed from 2020, when he usually seemed to enjoy interacting with fans and his colleagues. This spring, Wolff played and behaved like someone who could not wait to get off the course.“I was in a pretty bad head space,” he said.But on Thursday, Wolff smiled easily even though his round was topsy-turvy. He was tied for the lead at one point at three-under par but slumped to one under a few holes later. Overall, Wolff had eight birdies, three bogeys and two double bogeys.“A lot of good and a lot of bad,” Wolff answered with a snicker when asked to describe his play. “But that’s OK. That’s golf and I’m having fun with it. That’s what I have to focus on.“Many millions of people would trade with me in a heartbeat. And I needed to just kind of get back and be like, ‘Dude, you live an unbelievable life, like you don’t always have to play good.’ I wanted to be too perfect. I wanted to always please the fans — maybe too much sometimes.”Wolff’s 70 on Thursday had him three strokes off the championship’s early leader, Russell Henley, who shot 67. With half the field still finishing rounds, Francesco Molinari and Rafa Cabrera-Bello trailed Henley by one stroke. Brooks Koepka and Xander Schauffele, two of the pretournament favorites, were one stroke behind them. Phil Mickelson struggled throughout his round with five bogeys and shot 75. Viktor Hovland, a contemporary of Wolff’s whose impressive play this year has had made him a major championship contender, shot 74. Justin Thomas, who won this year’s Players Championship, opened with a two-over par 73.Wolff, however, was not watching the scoreboard, even though he was the third-round leader at the 2020 U.S. Open and the eventual runner-up to Bryson DeChambeau.“Like it’s awesome that I played well today, I mean, I’m thrilled,” said Wolff, adding that he did not watch golf on television during his two-month layoff. “But no matter what happened today the score that I shot I, like I said, I just have been having fun and I haven’t had fun out here in quite awhile.” More