{"id":257952,"date":"2026-01-22T12:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/257952\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T12:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:52:09","slug":"naomi-osaka-stunned-by-frosty-handshake-from-beaten-australian-open-opponent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/257952\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka stunned by frosty handshake from beaten Australian Open opponent"},"content":{"rendered":"

Osaka won 6-3 4-6 6-2 to defeat the 35-year-old Romanian, who was playing in her final Australian Open before retirement.<\/p>\n

A fuming Cirstea stormed away from Osaka after a brief handshake at the net, before turning around to exchange words with the former world No 1.<\/p>\n

\"Naomi<\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka walks onto court.<\/p>\n

Osaka was baffled by the confrontation and brought it up immediately during her on-court interview, although she was not directly asked about the incident.<\/p>\n

Asked what it took to advance to the third round, Osaka replied: \u201cApparently a lot of \u2018come-ons\u2019 because that\u2019s what she was angry about.\u201d<\/p>\n

It drew a mixed reaction from the crowd and Osaka added: \u201cI mean, I tried to play well. I think I made a lot of unforced errors but I tried my best. She\u2019s a great player. I think this was her last Australian Open, so, sorry she\u2019s mad about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cirstea appeared to be frustrated by Osaka pumping herself up between serves and when this was pointed out, an exasperated Osaka replied: \u201cShe could have asked me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, record-breaking Stan Wawrinka battled through a five-set epic to reach the third round and extend his final Australian Open by another match.<\/p>\n

The 40-year-old wildcard, who will be retiring at the end of the season, defeated the French qualifier Arthur Gea 3-6, 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, 7-6 (10-3) in four hours and 33 minutes – the longest match of the tournament so far. He became the second-oldest man to win a match at the Australian Open since it moved to Melbourne Park with a three-hour, 19-minute battle over Laslo Djere on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"Switzerland's<\/p>\n

Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka celebrates after winning his second round match against France’s Arthur Gea.<\/p>\n

The Swiss, a three-time grand slam champion and former Australian Open winner, went the full distance, requiring a match tiebreak to defeat Gea on a raucous Kia Arena. According to Opta, it was the 49th five-set match of Wawrinka\u2019s career at the grand slams, which moves him past compatriot Roger Federer for the most in the Open era.<\/p>\n

He is also the oldest man to reach the third round of the Australian Open since the great Ken Rosewell in 1978, who was 43.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka forced the fifth set with a trademark one-handed backhand winner down the line, a shot that had the Kia Arena on its feet after the former world No 3 found himself two sets to one down. In a wild fifth set, both players had multiple chances to break, while Gea required timeouts for medical treatment and to fix a broken shoe.<\/p>\n

The drama continued into the fifth-set tiebreak as the 21-year-old Gea, making his Australian Open debut, began to cramp. After Wawrinka won a 21-shot rally to establish control of the tiebreak, Gea doubled-over in cramp before serving. Wawrinka then produced a miraculous lob from behind the baseline, which finally broke Gea\u2019s resistance.<\/p>\n

Wawrinka required a wildcard to enter the Australian Open main draw, with his ranking down at 139th in the world before the tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Osaka won 6-3 4-6 6-2 to defeat the 35-year-old Romanian, who was playing in her final Australian Open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257953,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,898,112],"class_list":["post-257952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news-ticker","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257952"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257952\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}