Der Detective Keith L Williams Park is only eight kilometers away from the tennis facility in Flushing Meadows, it’s a nice walk through Corona Park, past the zoo and botanical garden, and yet it’s a completely different world: In one place, millionaires fight millionaires and from Monday onwards those who want to become one for prize money of 57.5 million dollars as well as worldwide attention and thus sponsorship money. The other is a meeting point for street athletes who gamble here, on the basketball courts, in the swimming pool or on the football field and dream of playing in a stadium themselves one day. What there is now: five tennis courts with colorful peace signs, musical notes and sponsor logos; Naomi Osaka designed it and inaugurated it on Thursday.
Sometimes it’s not bad at all, when you’ve conquered the world, to return to the places that have shaped you – especially after a year that is enough for a lifetime. The last twelve months in rapid succession: waiver of the semifinals in Cincinnati in protest against racism and police violence; it was the first domino to end all US sport for a day. Victory at the US Open, in every game she wore a mask with the name of a victim of systematic racism. Victory in Melbourne. Excitement at the French Open and withdrawal after round one because she did not want to attend the virtual press conferences out of concern for her mental health. Break during which she did photo shoots for sponsors and magazines. Lighting the Olympic torches at the Tokyo Games, losing in round three. Severe earthquake in Haiti, father Leonard is from there; she donated the prize money from the tournament in Cincinnati, eliminated in round two. Before that, she cried about fame and fortune after a provocative question from a reporter.
So there she was, surrounded by children, she had lived here after coming to the United States from Japan at the age of three; at eight she moved to Florida and trained as a tennis player. “All the people from back then are still there; they wanted me to call my parents because they have so much to tell,” Osaka said in the interview room on Friday Arthur Ashe Stadiumthat can really scare you: Actors sit in front of reporters, journalists from their workplaces (one drove in a car, another sat in the ballpark) are switched on on huge screens. Osaka stated that she would chat and joke when she was comfortable – and apparently she was in a good mood on Friday, because she gave a few glimpses of how she is doing before the US Open, where she was last despite the results is one of the favorites.
Osaka says some things are confusing for her because she is someone “who focuses on all things at the same time”
“I wish I could draw a line and become a robot superhero who fades out everything and just focuses on the field,” she said. “You could see that at the beginning of my career: it was my game recognize when something was wrong in private life. ” There are artists and athletes for whom space or stages are places to which they can escape from their problems. Freddie Mercury was one of them, Dennis Rodman once said: “I would play basketball for free. Sport is the easy part of this job, I get paid for all the bullshit that happens on the side.” For these people the place of performance is sacrosanct because everything else has to stay outside. On the contrary: They are often better at their art when a hurricane is raging outside and they are in the calm of the eye, as they say in the USA: perform.
“Unfortunately I’m not like that,” says Osaka: “I’m someone who concentrates on all things at the same time, that’s why sometimes everything is so confused and confusing for me.” One thing always has to do with the other, she had to learn that first, especially with regard to the excitement in Paris: “To be honest: I think I made a lot of mistakes back then – but I am now sometimes a person who likes to live in the moment. I say or do whatever I am feeling right now and I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. I didn’t realize what a big deal it was going to be. That did I learned: think a little about what effects what could have. “
In a good mood at the Billie Jean King Center in Queens: Naomi Osaka.
(Photo: Betancur/AFP)
So one thing has to match the other in order for it to work on the pitch; In view of the recent defeats in Tokyo against Marketa Vondrousova (number 40 in the world rankings) and Jil Teichmann (44) in Cincinnati, this leads to the question of what the overall Osaka concept will look like in the first game against Marie Bouzkova (Czech Republic, rank 86). “That’s right: I play better when there is a goal, a purpose.” At the Australian Open it had to do with the labyrinth on the way to the stadium (“I’ll tell you what exactly it is after retirement”), at the US Open last year it was messages against racism. And this year? “I don’t have the big message now. It’s going to be interesting what could drive me.”
When she had said that, a little boy reported via live video, and the young journalist was allowed to ask the stars the last question. “Tell me, you’re interested in fashion. When do you design something for children?” Osaka looks at her manager Stuard Duguid, who nodded, so she said, “I’m designing rackets for kids, maybe that’s something.”
That could be the drive for Osaka, where private experiences, work for sponsors, a higher goal and success in tennis are always connected: Osaka rackets for the youngsters, laughing children on the football field in Queens, where everything started for them has, and encounters with people who want nothing more than a victory for the heroine; only eight kilometers and yet a whole world away.
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