Tennis star Naomi Osaka recently exited Wimbledon after losing in the third round to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The disappointing three-set loss led to an emotional post-match press conference from Osaka, with one of her responses going viral.
The 27-year-old was honest about her emotions in the moment, expressing that she was just going to be a negative human during the press conference, and apologizing that she had nothing nice to say about herself.
Osaka then admitted that’s something she’s working on, before announcing that her daughter’s birthday had passed that week, and that was something she was happy about. Aside from that, the tennis player explained she was just constantly replaying the match she had just lost in her head.
Naomi Osaka fires back at ESPN on social media after Wimbledon loss
The vulnerable admission was clipped and shared across social media, with ESPN leading the way. That led to another statement from Osaka, as she called the platform out on social media for what she explained as a trend of misrepresenting her.
Responding to the video of her comments, Osaka asked, “Bro why is it every time I do a press conference after a loss the espns and blogs gotta clip it and put it up. Wtf, why don’t they clip my press conferences after I win? Like why push the narrative that I’m always sad?”
She followed that post up with another, explaining how she was disappointed in the moment of the press conference, but that she’s now motivated to do better.
Osaka explained how those are normal human emotions, but she feels as if she should fake happiness all the time, so her sad moments aren’t the only thing being shared.
Most fans would agree Osaka has a point. Exploding onto the tennis scene and winning four Grand Slam titles by the age of 23, she became the top women’s tennis player early in her career. However, her last Grand Slam win came in 2021, and her career has had a lot of ups and downs recently.
The lows have been extensively covered, with her transparent thoughts after losses always making the rounds.
Osaka is seemingly just asking for consistency. Share what she has to say after wins and losses, happy or sad. That would allow fans to get a full look at the spectrum of her personality.