‘I felt like a little kid again when I hugged her’
The killer instinct that carried Japan’s Naomi Osaka to a first grand slam title evaporated as she hugged her hero Serena Williams after beating her in a controversial US Open final.
Osaka said it wasn’t the ire of the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd – angered at penalties meted out to Williams – but just the realisation that she had robbed the US great who inspired her career of a record-equalling 24th grand slam title.
“I know that she really wanted to have the 24th grand slam,” said Osaka, who choked up again herself trying to explain her feelings.
“When I step on to the court, I feel like a different person, right? I’m not a Serena fan. I’m just a tennis player playing another tennis player. But then when I hugged her at the net I felt like a little kid again.”
Undaunted by the massive pro-Williams crowd, the 20-year-old broke Williams twice for a quick 4-1 lead in the opening set, displaying the kind of powerful ground game and dominant serve that have made Williams herself a star.
She had locked up the first in style with a blistering service winner when Williams was incensed by a code violation warning for receiving coaching from her box in the second game of the second set.
Although Williams would take a 3-1 lead in the set, the accusation festered, and soon a violation for racquet abuse cost her a point while a third for verbal abuse cost her a game.
“I didn’t know what was going on, I was just trying to focus. Since it was my first grand slam final, I did not want to get overwhelmed,” Osaka said. “Serena came to the bench and told me she had a point penalty and when she got the game penalty I didn’t know that either.
“I was just trying to focus on myself at that time.”
A somewhat muted reaction to her history-making victory had nothing to do with the late-match chaos, Osaka said.
Kei Nishikori is the only other Japanese player to reach a grand slam final, and he couldn’t take the last step, falling to Marin Cilic in the 2014 US Open men’s final.
“To have a huge reaction isn’t really me in the first place,” she said. “It just still didn’t really feel that real.”
Asked if she was prepared for the reception she’ll receive as the country’s first grand-slam winner, Osaka said: “Apparently not, because people keep asking me that.”