Following her tense exchange with Sorana Cirstea during the Australian Open, Naomi Osaka apologized to her opponent.
During her match against Cirstea on Thursday (Jan. 22), Osaka yelled “come on!” multiple times after scoring points, which led to her opponent complaining about it to the judge during the game. Shortly after Osaka won the match, the two met in the middle and had a tense exchange, which seemingly left the former confused as to why she had a problem.
In the immediate aftermath of the match, Osaka was asked about the incident. “Apparently, a lot of ‘Come ons’ that she was angry about, but whatever,” she said. “Whatever, she’s a great player. I think this was her last Australian Open. Sorry she was mad about it.” Her comments were met with a shocked reaction from the audience, but she insisted that Cristea could have spoken to her directly. “She could have asked me, like, bro,” she added.
During a press conference upon leaving the court, Osaka softened a bit and backtracked on some of her comments. “If I’m being honest, I’ve never been involved in something like this before… I’m a little confused but I get that emotions were very high for her,” she told reporters. “I also want to apologize. I think the first couple things I said on the court were disrespectful. I don’t like disrespecting people. That’s not what I do.”
Osaka said that she didn’t yell “come on” multiple times in an attempt to psyche out her opponent, but to psyche herself up. “If she wants to talk about it, then yeah. When I’m pumping myself up, in my head, I’m not like ‘Okay, and now I’m gonna distract the other person.’ It’s purely for me,” she said.
Asked if she was referring to their tense encounter in the middle of the court, Osaka replied, “I haven’t seen her. I meant on my on court interview, which I thought I could’ve done a lot better.”
