Naomi Osaka admits she is "bad with speeches" and plans to write down one before her next final so she knows in advance what she will say on the court.
In case you somehow missed it, Osaka spoke for about 15 seconds following her Montreal final defeat to Victoria Mboko. While the former world No. 1 showed some appreciation to the tournament's organizers and her team, she completely forgot to congratulate the 18-year-old Canadian on her big day – which led to the 27-year-old being criticized and called out for what many thought of as "an unclassy move."
The Japanese tennis star defended herself, insisting that she simply forgot because she was "in a daze" and didn't want to say something negative.
Speaking in front of reporters at the US Open, Osaka addressed the situation once again. When doing so, the world No. 25 – who retired from the Auckland final earlier this year due to an extremely unfortunate abdominal injury – said she "fumbled the speech" that time. However, she didn't have a pre-planned speech for the Montreal final because she thought she'd do better this time.
Osaka: I'll write something down the next time I have to give a speech
“It’s weird, I have experience and also not as much experience with speeches. Since I’ve been back, I’ve only been in two finals. In one of them, I definitely fumbled the speech—I hope no one looks it up—but I was stuttering a lot. I figured that since I knew what I did wrong in the first one, I could get it right in the second, but clearly it didn’t work out that way. Maybe third time’s a charm, but I’ll probably write something down for the third one," the 27-year-old said.
There is no doubt that Osaka would love to have her next speech at the US Open because that can only happen if she reaches the final.
