Osaka considers taking break from tennis following U.S. Open loss

Naomi Osaka looked over at her agent and said she wanted to tell the world what the two of them had discussed privately in an Arthur Ashe Stadium hallway after her U.S. Open title defence ended with a racket-tossing, composure-missing, lead-evaporating defeat in the third round.

His reply: "Sure."

And then Osaka, pausing every so often as her voice got caught on her words and her eyes filled with tears, said Friday night she is thinking about taking another break from tennis "for a while."

The moderator in charge of the session with reporters attempted to cut things off, but Osaka said she wanted to continue.

"This is very hard to articulate," she said, resting her left cheek in her hand. "Basically, I feel like I'm kind of at this point where I'm trying to figure out what I want to do, and I honestly don't know when I'm going to play my next tennis match."

Crying, she lowered her black visor over her eyes and offered an apology, then patted her palms on both cheeks.

"Yeah," Osaka added as she rose to leave, "I think I'm going to take a break from playing for a while."

This was the first Slam tournament for the 23-year-old Osaka since she pulled out of the French Open before the second round to take a mental health break after having announced she would not participate in news conferences in Paris.

She also sat out Wimbledon, before participating in the Tokyo Olympics, where she lit the cauldron as one of Japan's most famous athletes.

Osaka owns four Grand Slam titles, including at the U.S. Open in 2018 — beating Serena Williams in a chaotic final — and a year ago, plus two more on the hard courts of the Australian Open. When she took a hiatus after Roland Garros, she revealed that she endures waves of anxiety before meeting with the media and has dealt with depression for three years.

'I feel like maybe there was a boiling point'

Over the last week, Osaka has written on social media and spoken about her thoughts on the importance of self-belief and how she wants to ignore others' expectations.

The first sign Friday that things were not entirely OK with Osaka came when she smacked her racket against the court after dropping one point. Moments later, Osaka chucked her equipment, sending it bouncing and skidding halfway to the net. Then came a full-on spike near the baseline.

Afterward, she compared that behaviour to acting "kind of like a little kid."

"I was telling myself to be calm, but I feel like maybe there was a boiling point," Osaka said. "Like, normally, I feel like I like challenges. But recently I feel very anxious when things don't go my way, and I feel like you can feel that."

Her game was off. Her game face was gone. By the end, the crowd was booing her for turning her back to the court and taking too much time between points.

Osaka came in with a 16-match winning streak at majors. Still, Fernandez declared: "Right before the match, I knew I was able to win."

For Osaka, maybe the time away from high-level competition was an issue.

Another possible factor in her failure to close things out while serving for the victory against the left-hander Fernandez at 6-5 in the second set: Osaka hadn't played a match since Monday. The usual day-on, day-off rhythm at Slams was disrupted because the woman Osaka was supposed to meet in the second round, Olga Danilovic, withdrew with an illness.

"I've never had a walkover in a Grand Slam, so that was definitely a really weird feeling," Osaka said.