Just in time for this year's rumbles at Roland Garros, Naomi Osaka receives the feature treatment from GQ magazine.

The Indian Wells champion has recorded straight-sets victories over Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova this season, and yet she discloses in the profile, as she has in press conferences, that she deals with bouts of depression and loneliness on tour.

“Yesterday I just woke up and I was really depressed and I don’t know why,” Osaka said in Charleston. “I was able to win two matches, but I feel like… that doesn’t really say I can play well on clay. I think I’m just an okay player that was able to play okay.”

That may not be unique to Osaka on tour – pros including the promising Rebecca Marino, who retired and then came back – have shared similar experiences about the life and times of touring players. Even so, the 20-year-old Japanese knows that ups and downs will come with what can be a topsy-turvy, week-to-week experience as a solitary pro. As she puts it to GQ, "Like, it takes me a while to absorb things."

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Sascha Bajin, Osaka's coach, notes that her forthright, plainspoken nature has made her an approachable figure on the WTA Tour, where so many who find great success turn into relatively tactical PR juggernauts.

"She’s just being real," Bajin says. "She’s just being herself, and I think that that’s very refreshing to a lot of people. A lot of people in this world, sadly, in order not only to protect themselves but to not let people get close to them, they start faking emotions."

Bajin, who has also worked with Williams and Victoria Azarenka, adds of Osaka, "She's very honest and open, and I think that's why people are drawn to her."

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It's the always-on marketing machines who remind that the stars are not quite like the rest of us, whereas Osaka tends to tell it as she sees it, with, umm, refreshingly candid expressions and, uhh, awkward pauses abounding.

She began her Roland Garros campaign with a straight-set win over American Sofia Kenin.

Follow Jon on Twitter @jonscott9.

Osaka opens up
about ups and 
downs on tour

Osaka opens up about ups and downs on tour

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