Former WTA No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka blasted a critic for calling her a “fluke.”
“I just saw someone call me a fluke,” Osaka wrote on Threads. “How is possible to be a fluke with 4 grand slams, lighting the Olympic torch, beating multiple top 20 opponents and being close to top 50 the year after giving birth?… You couldn’t even touch one of my accomplishments with her fingernail.”
Osaka then shared the post on her Instagram story with the caption, “Did I lieeeee????”
Osaka, who made her return to the court in January after 15 months away and the birth of her first child, is currently ranked No. 75 in the world.
Osaka shared the post two days after forfeiting her Round of 16 match against Coco Gauff at the 2024 China Open.
With a quarterfinal bid on the line in Beijing, Osaka claimed the first set but lost the second. She then conceded the match before playing a third due to what she later said on Threads was a back injury suffered during practice earlier that day.
Osaka’s progress at the China Open, where she won three straight matches for the second time this year, is the next step in her continued effort to climb the WTA rankings following her January return.
Since her close loss to No. 1 Iga Świątek during the French Open in May, Osaka has fought through several early tournament exits including a first-round elimination from the 2024 Paris Olympics in July and a qualifying-round loss at the Cincinnati Masters in August.
The most disappointing may have been Osaka’s second-round exit at the U.S. Open, where she won two of her Grand Slam titles in 2018 and 2020.
Osaka celebrated her return to the tournament for the first time since 2022 with an opening-round win over No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko. The victory marked Osaka’s first defeat of a top-10 opponent in four years.
She was then unable to overcome No. 52 Karolina Muchova as she lost the second round in straight sets.
Osaka, who turns 27 later this month, recently hired Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou. She will now hope the coach who helped Williams claim 10 of her 23 Grand Slam wins can help her make a deeper run during next year’s major championship itinerary.
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