Naomi Osaka won on Thursday, first round, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2 against Sloane Stephens and of course she was happy about it, she’s still a tennis pro. But it’s a little different now, at the Masters tournament in Indian Wells: “I was walking across the facility and someone said, ‘I hope you’re having fun,'” she said. “Usually it’s always something like, ‘I hope you win – I have tickets to the finals.’ I know the difference isn’t that big, but it means a lot to me.”
The Japanese Naomi Osaka, 24, is now about more than just the next game, the next tournament. She has become the symbol of the mental health debate in professional sports because she is unusually open about how she is doing. In Indian Wells she now provides interesting insights again: “I’m very at peace with myself right now; that’s a very nice feeling.”
Little flashback: Withdrawal from the French Open 2021 because she didn’t want to attend the mandatory press conferences out of concern for her mental health. A few months later, tears broke out in Cincinnati in response to a reporter’s provocative question about fame and fortune. Endless pressure at the Tokyo Games, where she was allowed to light the Olympic flame, was to win gold – and was eliminated early. Then after leaving the US Open in September 2021: “I’m at a point in my life where I have to figure out what I want to do and I honestly don’t know when I’m going to play my next game.”
For Osaka, the way back is still a long way
The boxer Vitali Klitschko once said that he only sees the nearest mountains from the summit. Patrick Mouratoglu, Serena Williams’ coach, explained that the great strength of the 24-time Grand Slam winner is her permanent dissatisfaction and greed for more. Only: What does this constant greed do to a person – it doesn’t matter how many millions he has already earned? That’s the question asked by Naomi Osaka, tennis icon, former world number one, four-time Grand Slam tournament winner. She hasn’t played many tournaments in the past 12 months, since the US Open, only a pre-season tournament in Melbourne (she didn’t go through to the semi-finals) and the Australian Open (she was eliminated in the third round). She slipped to number 78 in the world rankings.
Handshake after the win: Naomi Osaka (left) and Sloane Stevens in Indian Wells.
(Photo: Sean M. Haffey/AFP)
“I’m a perfectionist,” says Osaka: “That’s why there were always doubts: can I ever play so well that I’m satisfied with myself?” Defeats are always fodder for these doubts – has it possibly gotten worse? But she recognized: “The players I have to play against are also getting better!” A defeat is therefore not proof that she herself has become worse: “We are all constantly developing; there are many things in which I have recently gotten much better.”
The way back is still long. The first serve, usually a dangerous weapon from Osaka, was inconsistent against Sloane Stephens. Only half of all attempts ended up in the field. The forehand: shaky. It was a game made unpredictable by the desert wind; in the past twelve months, Osaka would probably have despaired of itself. Now she stayed calm, not annoyed by the gusts that constantly threw sand into the stadium. She was trying to figure out how to win this game despite the difficulties, and it was obvious that she was actually enjoying it.
Anyone who has observed Osaka in recent years may have noticed that she has always given herself a goal – sometimes it went beyond sporting success, such as when she won the US Open in 2020, when she wore a mask with the Name of a victim of systematic racism appeared. Now, she says, she’s less concerned with scaling peaks and more interested in having fun climbing. That’s her goal now. She still wants to have some fun in Indian Wells, her next opponent on Saturday: the Russian Viktoria Kudermatowa.