{"id":56623,"date":"2025-08-09T09:49:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56623\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T09:49:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T09:49:06","slug":"naomi-osaka-releases-statement-after-backlash-to-losers-speech-tennis-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56623\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka releases statement after backlash to loser’s speech | Tennis | Sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi Osaka<\/a> has apologised to Victoria Mboko for not mentioning the Canadian Open champion<\/a> during her loser\u2019s speech. The visibly emotional defeated finalist spoke for only 18 seconds after being beaten by the home favourite.<\/p>\n

Looking despondent, Osaka stepped up to the microphone and told the crowd: \u201cI don\u2019t really wanna take up too much time. I\u2019ll just say thank you to everyone. Thank you to my team, thank you to the ball kids, to the organisers, and to the volunteers. I hope you guys had a good night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some fans were furious that the 27-year-old failed to mention Mboko, who had claimed her first WTA Tour title with her remarkable run in Montreal. The 18-year-old had come from behind to beat Osaka, her childhood idol, 2-6 6-4 6-1.<\/p>\n

Osaka has now apologised for the error, explaining that she did not want to repeat similar mistakes made during speeches in the past. The Japanese star wrote on her social media channels: \u201cThanks Montreal it\u2019s been a really great run. I also want to say sorry and congratulations to Victoria. You played a great match and have an amazing career ahead!<\/p>\n

\u201cI realise I didn\u2019t congratulate you on the court. Honestly, I was in a daze and I was so focused on not having the same speech as IW 2018 finals or the Jenny\/Jennifer situation that I tried to make my speech as short as possible. Thanks everyone for the week, see you in NY.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Jenny-Jennifer situation refers to Osaka calling Jenny Brady \u2018Jennifer\u2019 at the Australian Open<\/a> in 2021, despite her opponent telling her she prefers Jenny. Mboko has also been known to go by \u2018Vicky\u2019 on her social media channels, and Osaka did not want to risk a repeat of that mix-up.<\/p>\n

The four-time Grand Slam champion did refer to Mboko in the mixed zone afterwards, telling a handful of reporters: \u201cThis morning I was very grateful. I don’t know why my emotions flipped so quickly, but I’m really happy to have played the final. I think Victoria played really well. I completely forgot to congratulate her on the court. Yeah, she did really amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mboko insisted afterwards that she was not fussed about getting a mention from Osaka. She said: \u201cI didn’t really get a chance to speak with her after the game. I was kind of really caught up in everything that was happening after the match.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still think Naomi is an incredible player, and it doesn’t ever change what I think of her. I think she’s still a really nice girl. I still look up to her. Nothing really changes after the match. I’m really happy that I was able to win today, but to play against her was also a really special moment for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka has apologised to Victoria Mboko for not mentioning the Canadian Open champion during her loser\u2019s speech.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,24456,82,593,17045,20436],"class_list":{"0":"post-56623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-naomi-osaka","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-victoria-mboko","14":"tag-wta-tour"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}