During a press conference after the U.S. Open on September 3, tennis prodigy Naomi Osaka gave an emotional speech about her decision to leave tennis for some time after her loss to Leylah Fernandez.
USA Today reported that Osaka spoke candidly and expressed her rollercoaster of emotions during the match. In a close-call game, she lost her temper to the 18-year-old Canadian in the third round, 7-5, 6-7 (2), 4-6.
Osaka was asked where her strong outburst of emotion seen during her second set stemmed from.
She said, “Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. I’m not really sure why. Like, I felt like I was pretty – I was telling myself to be calm, but I feel like maybe there was a boiling point.”
“Like normally, I feel like I like challenges. But recently, I feel very anxious when things don’t go my way, and I feel like you can feel that. I’m not really sure why it happens the way it happens now. But, yeah, it’s basically why. You could kind of see that. I was kind of like a little kid,” she added.
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By the end of the press conference, Osaka was confronted about her range of emotions during the match and what steps were coming next.
“How do I go around saying this? I feel like for me recently, like, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” she said. “I feel more like a relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad. I don’t think that’s normal.”
In a tearful confession, she said, “Basically, I feel like – OK. Hmm, this is very hard to articulate. Basically, I feel like I’m kind of at this point where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do, and I honestly don’t know when I’m going to play my next tennis match.”
The U.S. Open match marked Fernandez’s first major win, having played the number 3 ranking player in the world.
