A heckler brought Naomi Osaka to tears and rattled the Japanese tennis star during an emotional 6-0, 6-4 loss to Veronika Kudermetova Saturday at the BNP Paribas Open.
A woman in the crowd inside Stadium 1 yelled, “Naomi, you suck!” at Osaka after Kudermetova went up a break early in the first set. The four-time Grand Slam champion, who has been transparent about her struggles with mental health, began to tear up and was visibly shook on Center Court at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
Fans around the woman yelled to have the heckler removed, but chair umpire Paula Vieira Souza said that the woman could not be identified and the match resumed, with the crowd largely behind Osaka.
At a break in play, following the second game, Osaka asked Souza for a microphone to address the crowd.
“Can I borrow your microphone?” Osaka asked the chair umpire.
“What do you want to say?” Souza responded.
“I just want to say something,” Osaka replied. “I’m not going to curse. I don’t curse. It’s just weighing on my heart.”
Souza spoke to WTA Tour supervisor Claire Wood, who then spoke to Osaka for several minutes before declining the request. A player taking the microphone mid-match would have been unprecedented.
Most of the conversation was inaudible but video replay of the conversation clearly picks up the supervisor saying of the heckler, “If it happens again, we’re going to find him.”
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The incident created a stir in the crowd and an almost immediate distraction for Osaka, who quickly fell behind two breaks and lost the first set 6-0 to the Russian.
Into the second set, Osaka seemed to shake off the first set loss. But Kudermetova patrolled the baseline with authority and appeared more focused and poised than Osaka during the critical moments of the set.
After the match, Osaka asked to speak to the crowd, which typically doesn’t happen when a player loses a match.
“To be be honest, I’ve been heckled before,” Osaka said to the crowd, choking up. “It didn’t really bother me. But heckled here? Like, I’ve watched a video of Venus and Serena (Williams) get heckled here, and if you’ve never watched it, you should watch it.
“And I don’t know why, but it went into my head and got replayed a lot.”
Osaka, 24, was referencing an incident in 2001 that caused the Williams sisters to not return to the tournament for more than a decade. The two sisters were set to play each other in the semifinals that year, but Venus withdrew with a knee injury just before the match, which upset some fans as speculation spread that their father, Richard Williams, predetermined the winner of their matches. The Williams sisters and their father have adamantly denied that their head-to-head matches were predetermined.
Serena Williams, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, was nonetheless roundly booed throughout the final against Kim Clijsters. Richard Williams said that racial slurs directed at him. Serena Williams revealed years later that she sobbed in the locker room after she beat Clijsters to win the tournament.
After she finally returned to Indian Wells, in 2015, Serena Williams said that the 2001 incident was the “darkest moment” of her career. Venus Williams returned in 2016.
Saturday’s incident, in contrast, was different. The majority of the crowd was in Osaka’s favor, though she was still shaken by what one person had shouted.
The episode overshadowed another strong performance by Kudermatova, 24, who has reached two tournament finals already this year. She’ll play again Monday against Marie Bouzková of the Czech Republic.
“I played really well today,” Kudermatova said. “I hope I will continue to play like that.”
Osaka’s transparency about her struggles with mental health has led her to become one the leading voices in opening the conversation about mental health awareness. Osaka, who is ranked 78th in the world and beat American Sloane Stephens Thursday, has taken time away from the court to manage her mental health. Indian Wells was Osaka’s third tournament since winning the U.S. Open in September.
She rose to fame quickly by winning the 2018 BNP Paribas Open, then following it with Grand Slam titles at the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020 and Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. Last year, Osaka earned $37 million, which was a single-year record for a female athlete, according to Forbes.
Andrew John covers sports for The Desert Sun and the USA Today Network. Email him at [email protected] and find him on Twitter at @Andrew_L_John.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism