NEW YORK: Naomi Osaka didn’t want to be cut. She did not want to be rescued. Yes, I was crying at the US Open postmatch press conference, crying as I struggled to find the right words to be able to share what I had in my head, but every time the moderator tried to finish it, assuming Osaka didn’t want to continue, Osaka he dominated it. I was determined to get that out.
“Recently, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” Osaka said Friday night. “I just feel relief. When I lose, I feel really sad. And I don’t think it’s normal. Basically, I feel like I’m in this moment where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do. Honestly, I don’t know when I’m going to play my next tennis game. I think that I will take a break to play for a while. “
It was an impressive moment and could gain weight in the coming months – and years – if Osaka did not play professional tennis again. This is not the first time Osaka has announced that it needed a break from the sport. After all, she was coming off a long break that saw her retire from the French Open and skip Wimbledon. But that felt different. Sitting in the living room, I wondered if I had just heard a retirement speech. Osaka was clearly hurting, but before he could get out of sight, he was going to find the calm to explain something to the world.
It wasn’t good. And I wanted to admit it.
“I guess we’re all dealing with a few things,” Osaka said. “But I know I’m dealing with a few things.”
Ever since Osaka withdrew from the French Open after being informed that he would be fined an increasing amount if he did not consent to the post-match interviews, he felt as if Osaka had asked him, for a time, that his tennis speaks for itself. At least until the world felt less horrible for her and talking made her less anxious.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized: was I really asking for so much? And what about us if we cared more about talking than tennis?
Perhaps, instead of longing for sound bites, we could learn something by slowing it down and observing it, letting its physical gifts reverberate in our consciousness, because a perfectly struck person has a language of his own. So does a rage thrown with rage.
I swore to see, to really see, how Osaka moved through time and space at the US Open. No questions asked, no budgets. I was just going to write what I saw.
What I saw, I realize now, was someone in pain.
I wonder if what I witnessed was an ending.
But also, perhaps, a beginning.
Osaka’s first-round match against Marie Bouzkova on August 30 seemed, by flash, a triumphant return to form. Despite everything that had unfolded last year, Osaka came to Queens as a defending champion. The last time he played a game at Arthur Ashe Stadium, he had left with his second American Open trophy.
She was light on her toes as the game began, moving her weight back and forth, trying to find her center. Most tennis players do this, unconsciously worrying about reassuring their minds before the ball is in the air, the moment they ask instinct and training to take over. But with Osaka, he’s always felt a little deliberate, like he’s trying to convince himself to keep moving and stop thinking.
Osaka’s service, arguably the best in the women’s game, can look a lot like lightning running downhill. I know this because, for a service match, I found an empty seat at the baseline behind Bouzkova, trying to see it from her perspective. Osaka likes to blow air on his fingers before dribbling the ball, he likes to hold it and make a nod to his opponent before serving, a small reminder of the start of a point should come as no surprise . He closes his eyes as he tilts his head back, only for a split second, and then rolls up his spine as he throws the ball into the air. Jumping from her toes, she jumps into space, pounding the racket down, screaming the ball across the net.
Bouzkova, a 23-year-old girl from Prague, handled these lightning bolts with more vigor than she could have expected, stepping on balls with a penetrating two-handed crossbar that made her run and change direction in Osaka, even stunning her occasionally. . The flaws that would prove to be his downfall in his next game against Leylah Fernandez were there, but he still wasn’t smart enough to see them. Osaka didn’t move well, he didn’t react to the ball like he once did. In the 4-4 of the initial set, Bouzkova got a break point and, for a moment, had the feeling of having a competitive match.
That’s when I saw it, the vast chasm between Osaka and someone like Bouzkova, a sharp, fast-paced but also limited tennis player. A cold intensity goes over Osaka’s face. He blew a wide serve, with his right arm unrolled in a blur and Bouzkova despaired, but could do nothing but deflect it from the racket frame. Deuce. Another Osaka service, this time shot in the middle, and Bouzkova’s head sank as he accelerated without touching. Osaka advantage. He bounced on his toes, broke the whip for the third time and threw a second ace followed by Bouzkova to end the match.
When the crowd erupted, Osaka seemed more relieved than exalted, letting out a small shout. It ended long before the applause. Bouzkova looked stunned. He would only win one match the rest of the match, which would rarely force Osaka to win prolonged rallies.
A couple of times, Osaka blew his fingers as he headed for the chair and I imagined a holster pulling away from him, uninterrupted and bewildered, as if I was glad I was done.
When the match was over, he saw a little girl in the crowd who had cheered him on. Osaka ran to the bag, shuffled inside and retrieved something, an Olympic pin that he handed to the girl. The girl smiled, and so did Osaka. It was one of the few times he smiled all night.
This has been an annoying season for Osaka. In February, he captured his fourth Grand Slam title of his career, winning the Australian Open for the second time, dominating the draw and losing just one set on his way to the title. But in May he retired from the French Open and decided to skip Wimbledon completely. When he struck a deal again in Cincinnati, he cried during the press conference. He said COVID isolation was beginning to be affected.
Osaka service can be lethal and its two-handed setback is efficient, even perhaps even underestimated. But his close-up has made me feel things for a long time. During his rise, it was as good a marriage of grace and power as anything in sports. Like a trumpet blast or a fool, he had a way of announcing his presence.
It was here, at the US Open, that his first hand came of age. In 2017, as an unclassified 19-year-old, he defeated defending champion Angelique Kerber so convincingly in the first round (6-3, 6-1) that Osaka was almost sheepish afterwards. Some of his left arms left Kerber looking overwhelmed. He needed reps to take advantage of him constantly, but a year later, he would execute Serena Williams with the same shots on the same court to win her first Grand Slam title. Williams looked miserable in defeat, crushing the racket and verbally attacking the chair referee. It wasn’t long before Osaka became the world number 1.
However, a lot has happened. Now his foreground runs cold and hot. As Osaka gained more experience, he lost some innocence. He stopped playing fearful tennis. When Fernandez tied in the third round after a pass in the second, it looked like a dangerous confrontation. Apart from being on the left, Fernández had nothing to lose.
Even on bad days, there’s something fascinating about the way Osaka coils his body in anticipation of the ball, storing energy in the core before unrolling and untying it, pushing it off the ground as it spins so both feet are often in the air. impact.
All modern tennis players use a version of this method to generate energy, spinning the core instead of the arm, an evolution that, on the female side, probably began with Steffi Graf before it was perfected by the Williams sisters. Serena, however, learned to generate energy with her feet still connected to the ground, a technique that sharpened her accuracy and allowed her to change direction quickly. Osaka’s power is like a mix of hammer throw and ballet, with little jumps after his best shots. The fluid arch he makes with his right arm can be beautiful to look at, but it’s also incredibly inconsistent.
It is possible that Osaka has looked at the net sometimes against Fernandez and seen a version of his old self. It was Osaka who used to play fearful tennis, who threw his fist between points and fed the energy of the crowd inside Arthur Ashe. It was Osaka, once, who would not let the mistakes bother her, who watched as the others unravel as she continued to be composed. But the deeper it was on Friday, the more obvious it was that something was wrong, neither with his game nor with his mood. Even after breaking Fernandez 5-5 in the first set with a pair of majestic first-hand winners, it didn’t seem to help her relax.
In the second set tiebreaker, Osaka’s anger boiled over after every wrong shot. He hit a left hand to fall behind 4-0, and then dropped the racket to the ground, pulling a mocking heart out of the crowd as he walked timidly into the net to retrieve it. He tossed the racket again after losing the next point, throwing a warning from the chair referee for his behavior. I remembered her U.S. Open final against Serena Williams on that same track, when Williams infamously lost her temper when the match slipped away. Osaka spent much of the change before the third set on Friday with a towel covered in his head, looking as if he was trying to hide from the world, wanting to be anywhere else.
Fernandez broke Osaka’s serve in the first game and from there it was clear it was only a matter of time. There would be no animated rally. When Fernandez won a point in the second game with a shot that reduced the net, Osaka responded by firing the ball into the stands angrily. It became hard to see.
Osaka tried to compose himself between points, taking a deep breath and one more second to play with the racquet strings while his back was on the field, but all he managed to do was attract more teasing from the people. When the match ended with another unforced error by Osaka, Fernandez threw his fists with ecstasy, absorbing a standing ovation from the fans. Osaka gave him a brief hug of congratulations, then quickly grabbed his things and left, letting out a soft signal of peace as he left the court.
An hour later, she was wiping away tears, but she was firm that no one would stop her from saying what she wanted, what she needed to say. That could be for her, at least for a while. It was not an answer to a question about his future; offered the information without any kind of volunteer. There were long episodes of silence as he tried to pull out the words.
When it was over, Osaka seemed relieved. He put on the mask again and stood up.
He drifted toward the door, not looking back.