Naomi Osaka criticizes critic who called her a fluke: You can’t match my performance | News, scores, highlights, stats and rumors

Former WTA No. 1 and four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka slammed a critic for calling her a ‘fluke’.

“I just saw someone call me a fluke,” Osaka wrote on Threads. “How is it possible to be a fluke with four grand slams, light the Olympic torch, beat multiple top 20 opponents and be close to the top 50 the year after giving birth?… You couldn’t even touch any of my achievements with her fingernail.”

Osaka then shared the post on her Instagram Story with the caption, “Did I lieeeee???”

Osaka, who returned to the court in January after a 15-month absence and the birth of her first child, is currently ranked No. 75 in the world.

Osaka shared the post two days after forfeiting her 16th round match against Coco Gauff at the 2024 China Open.

With a quarter-final bid on the line in Beijing, Osaka claimed the first set but lost the second. She subsequently conceded the match before playing a third due to what she later said on Threads was a back injury she suffered in training earlier that day.

Osaka’s progress at the China Open, where she won three matches in a row for the second time this year, is the next step in her continued bid to climb the WTA rankings following her return in January.

Since her narrow loss to No. 1 Iga Świątek at the French Open in May, Osaka has battled through several early exits from the tournament, including a first-round elimination at the 2024 Paris Olympics in July and a loss in the qualifying round at the Cincinnati Masters in August. .

Perhaps most disappointing was Osaka’s second-round elimination at the US Open, where she won two of her Grand Slam titles in 2018 and 2020.

Osaka celebrated her return to the tournament for the first time since 2022 with an opening round victory over No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko. The win was Osaka’s first loss to a top 10 opponent in four years.

She was then unable to defeat No. 52 Karolina Muchova as she lost the second round in straight sets.

Osaka, who turns 27 later this month, recently hired Serena Williams’ former coach Patrick Mouratoglou. She now hopes the coach who helped Williams claim 10 of her 23 Grand Slam victories can help her make a deeper run at next year’s major championship.