MELBOURNE – It was not a calm Australian Open for Naomi Osaka. The Japanese star sparked controversy with her extravagant entrance in her opening match, and in her second-round encounter she was accused by her opponent of unsportsmanlike behavior, something that was supported by Jelena Djokovic. In addition, this Saturday she announced her withdrawal from the tournament.
“It is disrespectful to applaud at someone’s first serve mistake. I am surprised that the chair umpire and Naomi thought that was fair?! Were there any rule changes that I missed?” Novak Djokovic’s wife wrote on Instagram, commenting on a video posted by TNT Sports that explained the controversy.
Osaka repeatedly shouted between her opponent’s serves. At the end of the match, her rival Sorana Cirstea confronted her at the net: “You’ve been playing for so many years and you have no idea what fair play is.”
Jelena Djokovic offered a detailed take on the incident: “I’m surprised this wasn’t considered a hindrance.”
“Between two serves, when the crowd applauds or shouts, the chair umpire usually asks them to stop because it disturbs the player. The point is not finished. Sorana missed her first serve and is focusing on getting the second one in — it is a slight pause,” added the CEO of the Novak Djokovic Foundation.
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Martina Navratilova also criticised Osaka along the same lines: “You cannot be talking out loud between your opponent’s first and second serves. Cirstea was ready to hit the second serve when Osaka shouted ‘Come on!’. That’s not OK. I don’t think she did it on purpose; she just didn’t realise. You can say ‘Come on!’ all you want, but keep it inside,” said the 18-time Grand Slam champion.
For her part, the former world No. 1 addressed the issue twice, with completely different tones. In her on-court interview, she showed little empathy toward her opponent, even with a touch of irony: “Apparently there were a lot of ‘come ons’ that bothered her, but yeah. She’s a great player, I think this was her last Australian Open. She was upset about that.”
An hour later, in her press conference, she apologised for those remarks: “I think the first things I said on court were disrespectful. I don’t like to disrespect people, it’s not what I do.”
When asked whether she felt her behaviour had been unsportsmanlike, Osaka avoided taking responsibility: “When I try to pump myself up, in my head I’m not thinking, ‘OK, now I’m going to distract the other person.’ It’s purely something for myself,” she explained.
All that tension faded into the background on Saturday when the Japanese player announced her withdrawal from the tournament due to an abdominal injury.
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