Naomi Osaka says she spoke with Victoria Mboko after the Montreal final to explain herself, and reveals the 18-year-old fully understood everything.
When Osaka set up a Montreal final meeting against Mboko, the former world No. 1 was told by a reporter that the Canadian teenage sensation used to idolize her as a kid. The Japanese melted down over that revelation, but failed to congratulate the Canadian during the trophy speech after losing in three sets in their Canadian Open final. As you probably know, that led to the four-time Grand Slam champion receiving massive criticism and scrutiny.
While Osaka apologized a few hours later and also defended herself in a separate social media post, the criticism still kept coming. After skipping Cincinnati and arriving at the US Open, the 27-year-old was asked to address the controversy surrounding the Montreal trophy speech.
Osaka: Mboko said she didn’t even notice… I was really glad about that
“I made sure to talk to her, because I know she’s young, and I would feel really terrible if that somehow impacted her humongous success. But she said it didn’t and she didn’t even really notice, so I was really glad about that. And I was also just really glad that she’s such a sweet girl—which honestly just made me feel even more terrible,” the four-time Grand Slam champion said.
Once again, Osaka reiterated that she is bad with speeches and that she didn’t want to speak too much after the Montreal final because she didn’t want to say a negative thing.
“Even going into the final I wanted to potentially write my speech, because I know how I am with talking and doing speeches. That was kind of a lesson to stick to my instincts a little. But yeah, I’ll definitely remember to congratulate my opponents,” the 27-year-old added.
Meanwhile, Osaka meets Greetje Minnen in the US Open first round.
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