Naomi Osaka may take another break from tennis after a 3rd round loss to Canadian teenager Leylah Fenrandez at the US Open on Friday night.
According to Yahoo sports, she shared that she is still dealing with mental health issues that led her to step back from tennis earlier this year.
The sport, the 23-year-old said tearfully, isn’t fun for her right now.
“I feel like for me recently, like when I win I don’t feel happy. I feel more like a relief,” she said while tearing up, via Sporting News’ Jackie Spiegel. “And then when I lose, I feel very sad.
I don’t think that’s normal.
I didn’t really want to cry, but basically I feel like … I’m kind of at this point where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do, and honestly I don’t know when I’m going to play my next tennis match. Sorry.”
Fernandez, 18, picked up the biggest win of her career on Friday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium in a battle with Osaka.
Naomi Osaka, normally very stoic, throws her racquet after missing a forehand. No code violation but she lost the tiebreak to Fernandez pic.twitter.com/o8ZsVL8osM
— Adam Zagoria (@AdamZagoria) September 4, 2021
Twitter’s reaction to her expression of emotion was mixed:
So what? It’s sport and there’s passion and emotion involved. BFD she threw her racket – shall we call the police?!?! ?
— Moose (@MRMV84) September 4, 2021
and
Ugliest name calling for such an on court behavior seems to be reserved only for Serena.That is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If Naomi's behavior is out of "frustration" then they should have deferred the same to Serena, but no, why, because Osaka is a diva
— VimRav (@VimRav2) September 5, 2021
Osaka first announced at the French Open in May that she wasn’t going to speak to any reporters at the event, due to mental health concerns she had.
After facing immense backlash — the French Open even fined her for her decision — she eventually dropped out of the tournament altogether and didn’t return to the court until the Olympics.
She then broke down in tears after returning to do a formal news conference at the Western & Southern Open last month, and her agent slammed a “bully” reporter who asked her about her relationship with the media.
Though she was in tears Friday night in New York, Osaka pushed through her news conference even after the moderator tried to cut her off multiple times when they saw she was getting upset.
Osaka clearly wanted to get her message across.
