Naomi Osaka is withdrawing from the French Open after being fined for refusing to attend a press conference

• Osaka is withdrawing from the French Open after being fined $15K for skipping a press conference.
• She said she "never wanted to be a distraction" from the tournament.
• Osaka added that she gets "huge waves of anxiety" before she speaks to the media.

Naomi Osaka is withdrawing from the French Open after being fined $15,000 for not attending a post-match press conference over the weekend.

The tennis champion announced her withdrawal on Twitter.

"I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris," she wrote. "I never wanted to be a distraction and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly."

Osaka went on to say she has had bouts of depression since the 2018 US Open and that she gets "huge waves of anxiety" before she speaks to the media.

"I get really nervous and find it stressful to always engage and give you the best answers I can," she wrote. "So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences."

"I announced it preemptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that," she continued.

The rising tennis star announced last week she would not attend French Open press conferences, saying she wanted to protect her mental health.

"We're often sat there and asked questions that we've been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I'm just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me," Osaka wrote last week.

She was fined $15,000 on Sunday after she didn't attend a post-match press conference following her first-round win over the Romanian Patricia Maria Tig.

Osaka's decision not to speak to the media became a talking point throughout the tennis world during the start of the French Open.

Ashleigh Barty, the top-ranked woman in the world and the 2019 French Open champion, had said she viewed speaking to the media as "part of the job."

"In my opinion, press is kind of part of the job," Barty said, according to The Associated Press. "We know what we sign up for as professional tennis players. ... At times, press conference are hard, of course, but it's also not something that bothers me"

Rafael Nadal, the 13-time French Open champion, had said he didn't think athletes would be as popular as they are without the press.

"Without the press ... probably we will not be the athletes that we are today," Nadal said, via the AP. "We (aren't) going to have the recognition that we have around the world, and we will not be that popular, no?"

The tennis legend Billie Jean King echoed that message in a statement posted to Twitter, writing that when she was a professional, nobody would have known who she was. She also wrote that circumstances are different today, with athletes able to use social media to get their messages out.

Tennis Australia, the US Tennis Association, the French Tennis Federation, and the All England Lawn Tennis Club said in a statement shared by Roland Garros stadium that Osaka could face further discipline, including a suspension, if she continued to skip press conferences.