The Strength & Resilience of Naomi Osaka

  

Just last week at the Australian opening tennis match, tennis player, Naomi Osaka was caught in between of a slight spat with her opponent, Romanian tennis player Sorana Cirstea. Whilst the two were in the middle of their game, Cirstea became visibly irritated over Osaka’s frequent “come ons” she would do in between serves to hype herself up, causing her to alert the umpire of Osaka’s apparent “behavior.” During an in court interview, Osaka expressed her apologies for causing such a stir in her opponent and again apologized for her behavior. Even when Osaka was victorious in the match, Cirstea made sure to project her frustrations onto Osaka in a “frost handshake.” Both women claim they have no drama among each other, and probably emotions were running high that day due to long travel, but there’s a consistent pattern when it comes to black woman existing in sports. Especially a competitive, high-strong sport like tennis where emotions are already running high and are usually heightened. Even if it wasn’t done with a malice intent and she was acting more in the moment, Cirstea attempted to frame herself as the victim a frame Osaka as the villain just because she was loosing. Osaka was the bigger person in apologizing to a situation she didn’t directly cause as she can’t control her opponents emotions and is not responsible for how her opponents may feel. It’s usually labeled as “competitive spirit” when white players are aggressive and verbally abusive towards their black opponents and a frequent pattern also shown among tennis player Serena Williams. The media was quick to point out William’s “aggressive behavior” when she would yell, or even whack her tennis racket on the ground, quickly pointing fingers of her being the antagonist. Black women should never have to apologize for their emotions or taking up space. Again, Osaka took the higher ground by extending an apology first, although she never caused the problem, therefore she shouldn’t have had to feel pressured into apologizing. If she feels joyous, or wants to pump herself up, she shouldn’t be restricted by doing so. Why should it matter if she hurts her opponent’s feelings? At the end of the day, it is a quick, rapid game, so emotions shouldn’t be magnified. It’s one thing if Osaka was verbally abusing her opponent, but her opponent’s behavior was on the brink of verbally abusive as well as micro aggressive. The media for sure downplayed Cirstea’s behavior because had it been Osaka or another black female tennis player, she would’ve automatically been labeled as “an angry black woman” by the media and vilified.