Navratilova on Osaka's tennis decline: "Forces outside tennis are affecting her more than anything"

Martina Navratilova feels that outside forces have a great impact on Naomi Osaka and influenced how her career transpired in the last two years.

Osaka used to be a force in tennis but that changed in the past two years as she did not play that regularly. She dealt with injuries, mental health problems and all sorts of stuff that wasn't a factor until recently. Now she looks to return to the top but she's busy with many other interests that take away time from tennis.

That is at least how Navratilova sees her situation from the outside although she noted it's a rather unique case:

"She’s a very unique case, in every way. So maybe you need to deal with it uniquely. Maybe she doesn’t have to play all those matches, but she certainly has to play more than she has played."

Navratilova continued:

"With her, it seems to be the forces outside tennis are affecting her more than anything else. It’s baked in. How she’s set up her life with all those outside interests and influences and demands on her time greater than anybody else."

Osaka herself confirmed that she has many interests outside of tennis but reitarated her love and commitment to tennis recently. Navratilova needs to see it first:

"If her priority is tennis, then step back a little bit. You don’t have to do it all. It has to suck your energy away from tennis. I’m all for broadening your horizons -- I was never a one-trick pony -- but tennis came first. It doesn’t mean training harder, necessarily, but maybe sometimes doing nothing at all. Put your feet up or go to the beach."