naomi Page 5 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Naomi Osaka isn't Serena Williams' rival – she's her legacy
There is a poignancy in the current moment in women’s tennis. Naomi Osaka learned from the best, and then ended another one of Serena Williams’ evanescent chances to tie Margaret Court’s 24 record Grand Slam singles titles....
Let Serena Williams sit back, enjoy greatness, and close out her career on her own terms
We all know the end is nearing for Serena Williams’ career....
It’s clear, after dismantling Serena at Aussie, Naomi Osaka’s game just doesn’t give a…
It’s fair to say that Serena Williams has met her Serena Williams in Naomi Osaka....
Naomi Osaka Ends Bianca Andreescu's Hot Streak, Opens Up What Should Be A Gnarly Rivalry
Bianca Andreescu, a 19-year-old apparently blessed with every tennis gift besides consistent health, has enjoyed one of the most surreal debuts in tennis history. Her season’s been so good that she can toss off a quote like “I kind of forgot how to lose” and no fair observer bats an eye. Consider a...
Naomi Osaka's Treatment Of Defeated Teen Coco Gauff Was A Moment To Treasure
The enthralling run of 15-year-old prodigy Coco Gauff had to come to an end eventually. She fell in straight sets, 6-3, 6-0, to No. 1 Naomi Osaka in the third round Saturday at the U.S. Open. Osaka did everything she could to make the disappointment hit Gauff as softly as possible....
Coco Gauff, Who Is 15, Is Absolutely Killing It
After a prodigious run at Wimbledon earlier this summer, 15-year-old American Coco Gauff earned a tough three-set win (6-2, 4-6, 6-4) over 26-year-old Timea Babos of Hungary on Thursday night, becoming the youngest player to reach the third round of the U.S. Open since Anna Kournikova in 1996 and ma...
Serena Williams Shares The Apology She Sent To Naomi Osaka After U.S. Open
Serena Williams, currently in the middle of another Wimbledon title hunt, has an essay out in Harper’s Bazaar today that lays out the emotional aftermath of her 2018 U.S. Open final. That match, which resulted in the first major title for then-20-year-old Naomi Osaka, was marred by a long umpire dis...
Sad Naomi Osaka Is The Saddest Sight In Tennis
One endearing thing about Naomi Osaka is that she seems to actually digest and carefully respond to the questions asked of her in press. Where many athletes are ready to spit out some prepackaged platitude—which, in fairness, is about the level of thought that most post-game queries deserve, in any ...
Naomi Osaka Ditched Her Coach After One Wildly Successful Year And No One Knows Why
Even accounting for the constantly whirling coaching carousel in professional tennis, the abrupt split of 21-year-old Naomi Osaka, fresh off two consecutive grand slam wins, and her coach of one year, Sascha Bajin, is puzzling—partly because it came weeks after her Australian Open win, and partly be...
Naomi Osaka Found Herself In Danger, Turned Into A Robot, And Held It Down
It could have unraveled so quickly for Naomi Osaka. Up a set and 5-3, having whittled Petra Kvitova’s service game down to 0-40, Osaka had three straight opportunities to claim her first Australian Open. None of them got her there. First Kvitova tore the court open with her fiercest groundstrokes, l...
Naomi Osaka Floats On To Another Slam Final
My exact moment of religious conversion on Naomi Osaka came while watching her play Karolina Pliskova from a few feet away in Indian Wells. Pliskova was and still is a spindly winner machine, and she sent balls bounding into the corners with no desire to see or deal with them ever again. Osaka was d...
Q&A: Author Rowan Ricardo Phillips On The Future Of Men's Tennis And Why Race Is Still The Game's Third Rail
In the bleak winter days of mid-January 2017, Rowan Ricardo Phillips rose before dawn. The Australian Open was underway, and he was hellbent on watching every televised ATP men’s match over the course of the year. Phillips’s obsession with the game turned into total spectator immersion, starting Dow...
Ellen DeGeneres, Drunk With Power, Tries To Set Up Naomi Osaka With Michael B. Jordan
Life came fast at Naomi Osaka. After she skipped the hype machine of the junior circuit, went pro, and won some local fame in Japan, Osaka won her first professional title of any kind at Indian Wells this year, and her second at (sheesh) the U.S. Open. Within days of hoisting that second trophy, she...
Naomi Osaka Has Various Tea-Related Feelings About Her Bizarre U.S. Open Final
Naomi Osaka dominated a whole major for two weeks, including the final match, but collective memory has been dominated by the argument between Serena Williams and umpire Carlos Ramos. Everyone with any feelings about that has, by now, aired them out in public: Williams, Ramos to an extent, former pl...
Naomi Osaka Paid The Price For The Feud Between Serena Williams And Carlos Ramos<em></em>
If your tennis brain has only room for one takeaway from the U.S. Open, let it be this: Naomi Osaka was the most dominant player in the world over the last 14 days. With the exception of a fourth-round test of will, all of Osaka’s matches, including the final, were straight-set, open-and-shut, surg...
Like The Rest Of Us, Tennis's Governing Bodies Are Arguing About Serena Williams
Through a series of statements, tennis’s governing bodies (the Women’s Tennis Association, the U.S. Tennis Association, and the International Tennis Federations) are staking out their positions on the sad and entirely avoidable debacle that was the U.S. Open women’s final. ...
Serena Williams Hit With $17,000 Fine For Her Part Of U.S. Open Final Shit-Show
The second set of Saturday’s women’s U.S. Open final was a total debacle, featuring a suspect code violation for coaching, and then an even more suspect game penalty for “verbal abuse,” triggering an insane and exhausting sequence where Serena Williams called down a tournament referee and brought th...
Sensitive Ref Pushes Serena Williams To Melt Down And Ruins Naomi Osaka's U.S. Open Victory
Naomi Osaka beat Serena Williams in straight sets to win the U.S. Open and become the first Japanese tennis player to win a Grand Slam. Unfortunately, the historic win was marred terribly by an officiating controversy....
Naomi Osaka To Upcoming U.S. Open Final Opponent Serena Williams: "I Love You"
Last night, 20-year-old Naomi Osaka beat Madison Keys in a U.S. Open semifinal match 6-2, 6-4 to advance to her first grand slam final, where she will face Serena Williams, who has played in 31 of them. How is Osaka feeling about playing Serena? Pretty good!...
Naomi Osaka Has Been Ruthless And Efficient At The U.S. Open
There was one close one—a fourth-round victory over Aryna Sabalenka that took her all three sets—but beyond that, the U.S. Open has been one continuous bloodbath for Naomi Osaka, the 20-year-old No. 20 seed. These are massacres on the order of Rafael Nadal carving up Roland Garros. Three times, she...