By Chris Oddo | Tuesday February 19, 2019
Naomi Osaka opened up to reporters after dropping her first match as World No.1 to France's Kristina Mladenovic at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, 6-3, 6-3.
More: Mladenovic Topples Top-Ranked Osaka in Dubai
After a brutal performance from the service stripe—Osaka was broken seven times and said she didn’t think she could ever remember being broken so much—that saw her win just five of 27 second-serve points against the World No. 67, the 21-year-old was candid in assessing her performance.
“That’s an understatement,” she said when asked about her struggles on serve against the former World No.10 . “It was a disaster.”
Osaka, at times giggly and at others on the verge of tears in her meeting with reporters, admits that it has been tough sledding after a shocking split with her coach Sascha Bajin and all the media attention that has cascaded into her lap in its aftermath.
The turbulence, expectedly, has hampered her preparation.
“I haven’t been practicing well recently, but I just thought it would go away during the matches and I was kind of counting on that, and that didn’t happen,” she told reporters after falling to 9-2 on the season and losing in her first match at an event for the first time since last year's Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati.
When asked if she was concerned, Osaka expressed confidence in her ability to overcome this recent set of challenges.
“The Australian Open was literally not even a month ago,” she said. “This was just one match. I feel like even if I don’t win any matches for the rest of the year I wouldn’t say I’m concerned, because I think I’m pretty young and I still feel like I have a lot to learn.”
She also added, hopefully: “I think I play well after I lose a sort of bad match, so I’m just looking forward to the next one.”
Hope certainly should spring eternal for the World No.1. There is no denying either the talent that Osaka possesses or the mental fortitude she exhibited last month in Australia when things clearly weren’t right between her and her ex-coach Bajin. Her title in Australia may not fall in the same superwoman category of Serena Williams' 2017 run as a mother to be, but Osaka’s victory down under, in retrospect, can now be viewed as a more steely achievement given what we now know.
Osaka's inner strength clearly hasn’t disappeared in a month’s time. The ability to stare into the boiling-hot cauldron of intense match pressure and come up with the goods can't have disappeared either; nevertheless recent developments and the intense scrutiny that she is and will continue to receive from the media are cause for concern. Being on tour even when in full flight with a full entourage tending to one’s every whim is difficult enough, but to tread into the meat of the WTA season with a coaching team in disarray and the emotional residue of a very public and trying moment on the tip of everybody’s tongue will be no small task for Osaka and Co.
Make no mistake about it: this next month is critical for Osaka and her momentum. As the buzz fades from her decision to part ways with Bajin, a new clamor will grow regarding her decision on a new coach, which she expects to have made by Indian Wells.
“I’m pretty sure as time goes on you guys will stop talking about it,” Osaka said about her split with Bajin. “For now it’s like the biggest tennis news I guess. So yeah it’s a little bit hard because I feel like people are staring at me and not in a good way.”
Osaka did show some vulnerability in media today, when asked: “Has the reaction to your coaching situation surprise you and is that part of a learning process?”
Her answer was perfect and perfectly composed, but at the end of a sentence she trailed off into tears and needed a moment to collect herself before her smile returned.
“I don’t think I necessarily understand what position I am in, in a way,” she said. “Last year I wasn’t even anywhere close to this ranking. People didn’t pay attention to me and that’s something that I’m comfortable with.”
“I don’t really like attention—so it’s been a little tough,” Osaka admitted.
Losing first-round in Dubai might actually prove to be a blessing in disguise. The tennis word descends on the California desert in two weeks—that’s not a lot of time for Osaka and her team to wheel, deal and put a new coach in place.
In the meantime, she’ll get a few weeks away from the camera to compose herself and prepare for the next step of the incredible journey that, in many ways, began just over one year ago, when she stormed to the title at Indian Wells.
Once again we can rely on the familiar sports axiom when pondering what may come next for this bristling talent who has taken women’s tennis by storm in the last six months. It’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you react to what happens to you.