Almost two months later, exactly 56 days since she last stepped onto a track to compete, Naomi Osaka reappeared with racket in hand and solved her debut at the Olympic Games without complications against Saisai Zheng, whom she defeated 6-1 and 6 -4.
Two nights earlier, his image ascending to the reproduction of Mount Fuji during the inauguration at the Tokyo National Stadium had gone around the world, but the great unknown remained to be solved: how he would react to his first public appearance in front of journalists, after acknowledging that she does not feel comfortable in these types of situations, that she suffered a two-year depression and that press conferences have taken their toll on her mental health.
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Naomi Osaka, from impact to impact without stepping on the track
Sara Sorribes and the day she always dreamed of
Like each and every tennis player participating in the Olympic competition, Osaka (23 years old) paraded through the mixed zone set up by the organization and the International Tennis Federation (ITF), stopping first before two televisions and then before the Local and international representatives of the written press, milling around in search of a gap to check in what state the tennis player is in and if she has overcome the mood slump that led her to abandonment at Roland Garros and resignation from Wimbledon. And she synthesized it in a brief format, so succinctly that in just five minutes she dispatched her speech, with her characteristic introverted pose: "I am happy again."
Still sweaty and with the pink braids that she has left for her return running down the back of her body, the Japanese said this Sunday that she is happy to return, that she must recover the rhythm and that the experience of two days before, when it became the first A tennis player in history who lit the Olympic cauldron, he had found it fascinating. That is, the number two in the world and champion of four greats - the US Open of 2018 and 2020, and the Australian Open of 2019 and last year - tiptoed through the issue that she did address through the letter published two weeks earlier in
Time
magazine
- "It's okay to not be okay," it was titled - and later in a Netflix documentary.
"More than anything I'm focused on tennis," she introduced at a distance of two meters from those present, with the flag of her country on her chest.
“The Olympic Games have always been a dream for me, since I was a child, so I consider that the break I took was very necessary.
I definitely feel a little more renewed and happy again ”, continued the highest paid athlete in the world, with an extensive list of sponsors behind her and a brutal pull on social networks;
mentioned, in the following season of the tournament, with the Swiss Viktorija Golubic, the 50th in the
world
ranking
.
The physical toll and the Olympic flame
The last time Osaka played a match was in Paris, where she beat Patricia Maria Pig in the first round and then announced that she would not appear at the mandatory press conference. In this way, from the physical point of view it must recover the lost ground. "I feel a little out of my body right now," he said. “There is nothing wrong, but I felt really nervous. I had not played since France, so there are things that I did a little wrong, but I think I can improve as I play more games, "he considered before referring to the ceremonial episode with which Japan sent a message of integration and diversity to the world.
"I feel very proud, it was an honor to light the flame," said Osaka, the mestizo fruit of a Haitian and a Japanese woman who had to leave the Asian country because of racism and emigrate to the United States, where the athlete has resided since she was two years.
“It's a situation that you dream of and that not everyone can live with, so when they asked me if I wanted to, I was very surprised.
I am very happy to be here and very happy to play again, especially in Tokyo ”, she settled before retiring to the dressing room surrounded by the organizational entourage.
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