Osaka stoic after upset win
Congratulations, you just have beaten the defending U.S. Open champion and recent world No. 1. Not just beaten — dominated. It is a teenage dream come true. So you ... smile? Kind of ?
“I feel like maybe there’s something wrong with me because I’m not as excited as I thought I would be,” a deadpan Naomi Osaka said Tuesday after steamrolling No. 6 Angelique Kerber in the f irst round, 6-3, 6-1, under the Arthur Ashe Stadium roof at a rain-soaked Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
“I was thinking about it on the court: ‘If I win, what would I do if I won? Hey, maybe I should throw the racket and scream or something.’ But then when I actually won, I didn’t do anything. So I was kind of sad about that. Especially since this is something when you’re little you dream about: playing on Arthur Ashe against a great champion.”
Osaka, 19, is biracial and competes under the flag of Japan, her mother’s native country (her father is Haitian). The family moved to the United States when Osaka was 3, and lived for a time on Long Island before settling in Florida.
“When we were little, we would come to the U.S. Open every year,” Osaka said. “So the site feels really familiar to me. It’s nostalgic every time I come here.”
Touted by no less an authority than Serena Williams as a rising superstar, Osaka bludgeoned Kerber into submission with her forehand. She hit 22 winners (14 off the forehand side) to Kerber’s nine.
“I think she was just going for it,” Kerber said. “She had nothing to lose. She was playing her best tennis, I think, at the important moments. She’s a great hitter.”
For Kerber, it was a fitting end to the major calendar — she followed 2016 triumphs at the Australian and U.S. Open by failing to reach even the quarterfinals of a major this year and thoroughly frittering away her No. 1 ranking. After the match, Kerber alluded half-heartedly to an elbow injury.
Osaka had left Ashe in tears in 2016, having suffered a pitiful meltdown in a third-round match with Madison Keys in which she led 5-1 in the third set. This time, the tears — the visible emotion of any kind, really — only came later on.
“My mom, apparently she was here. I didn’t know that,” Osaka said. “She flew in yesterday, but she kept it a secret, so I saw her after my match, and ... then I just started crying a little bit.”