diff --git a/changelog/9608.bugfix.rst b/changelog/9608.bugfix.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4dda46bec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/9608.bugfix.rst
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix invalid importing of ``importlib.readers`` in Python 3.9.
diff --git a/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py b/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
index f0922870a..81096764e 100644
--- a/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
+++ b/src/_pytest/assertion/rewrite.py
@@ -273,13 +273,15 @@ class AssertionRewritingHook(importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder, importlib.abc.Loader)
         with open(pathname, "rb") as f:
             return f.read()
 
-    if sys.version_info >= (3, 9):
+    if sys.version_info >= (3, 10):
 
         def get_resource_reader(self, name: str) -> importlib.abc.TraversableResources:  # type: ignore
-            from types import SimpleNamespace
-            from importlib.readers import FileReader
+            if sys.version_info < (3, 11):
+                from importlib.readers import FileReader
+            else:
+                from importlib.resources.readers import FileReader
 
-            return FileReader(SimpleNamespace(path=self._rewritten_names[name]))
+            return FileReader(types.SimpleNamespace(path=self._rewritten_names[name]))
 
 
 def _write_pyc_fp(