Naomi Osaka has broken down on court after she was heckled mid-game by a spectator at the Indian Wells Open, a tennis tournament in California.
Playing against Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova, a spectator shouted, “Naomi, you suck.”
The heckler was heard calling out to the 24-year old champion early in the first set, interrupting her game.
After losing the next service game and falling 0-3 down, Osaka approached the umpire, Paula Vieira Souza and requested to “borrow” the microphone to talk to the crowd.
During the change of ends, Osaka, who looked visibly upset, went to WTA match referee Clare Wood, who then advised Vieira Souza to intervene if she heard any further heckling from the crowd.
Osaka lost the first set, 0-6, then the entire match, after going on to lose the second set, 4-6.
She addressed the crowd at the end of the match, thanking them, and referencing a video of Venus and Serena Williams being heckled at the same tournament.
“To be honest, I’ve [been] heckled before and it didn’t really bother me but…I’ve watched a video of Venus and Serena [Williams] getting heckled here — if you’ve never watched it, you should watch it — and I don’t know why but it went into my head and got replayed a lot,” she said.
In the finals of the tournament in 2001, Serena was booed after accusations from Russian player Elena Dementieva that Williams’ father had “manipulated” the draw.
Williams went on to beat Belgian player Kim Clijsters, but was heckled and booed by crowds.
The Williams family have insisted that the heckling was due to racism.
Currently ranked 78 in the world, Osaka has been a vocal advocate for mental health, speaking out about her struggles with it since her 2018 US Open win.
At least year’s French Open, she was criticised for refusing to answer any questions from the press post-match.
“I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences,” she said, after withdrawing from the competition.
“I announced it pre-emptively because I do feel like the rules are quite outdated in parts and I wanted to highlight that.”