Tennis champion Naomi Osaka has been ousted from the Tokyo Olympics after losing to former French Open finalist Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-4 in the third round of the Olympic tennis tournament on Tuesday.
“I’m disappointed in every loss, but I feel like this one sucks more than the others,” said Osaka. She says the pressure to excel during the sporting event was tremendous.
“I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this,” Osaka said. “I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year [it] was a bit much.”
While the loss may be a hard pill to swallow, the athlete says she’s “happy again” following her brief hiatus from the sport. Osaka is still the no.2 ranking female star in the world and is the highest-paid female athlete on the planet.
“The Olympics has been a dream of mine since I was a kid, so I feel like the break that I took was very needed. I feel definitely a little bit refreshed, and I’m happy again,” said Osaka, who represented Japan in the Olympics.
There’s nothing wrong with my body; I just felt really nervous,” she said. “I haven’t played since France, so there were definitely some things that I did a bit wrong, but I think I can improve in the matches that I continue playing.”
Osaka quit the French Open to help preserve her mental health. “I’ve taken long breaks before and I’ve managed to do well,” she said. “I feel like my attitude wasn’t that great because I don’t really know how to cope with that pressure so that’s the best that I could have done in this situation.”
Osaka was fined $15,000 for refusing to do interviews at the French Open.
