Don't Hurt Yourself, Naomi

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

NEW YORK, NY, USA – Naomi Osaka scored a huge win on her US Open main draw debut, and she was powered to victory by a little bit of Lemonade.

Up against the No.28 seed CoCo Vandeweghe in a match dubbed by the WTA Insider team as a must-see opening round contest, Osaka had to recover quickly after dropping the first set in a tie-breaker. She rallied for a 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3 upset over the big-hitting American.

“You wouldn’t want to know what I was thinking,” Osaka said, when asked what was going through her head after losing the first set in a tiebreak to Vandeweghe. “I shouldn’t really repeat what I was thinking. But basically just try to focus more because I had moments in the tiebreaker and I hit some very bad shots.”

Osaka finished 2015 ranked No.203, and her consistency has skyrocketed her up the rankings to enter the US Open with a career high of No.81. She’s been boosted by strong Grand Slam results, too, reaching the third round at her Australian Open and French Open debuts this year.

So what was the key to last night’s comeback victory?

“I don’t know,” she laughed. “I just relaxed and started singing Beyoncé in my head. It’s the [song] where she’s very upset. It’s the one where she’s wearing the Yeezy clothes and cursing into the camera. That one.”

“You just gotta let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be baby.”

With the win, Osaka advances to the second round where she will face a qualifier Duan Ying-Ying of China.

And while Osaka was singing Beyoncé en route to victory, she wasn’t the only one feeling inspired by the pop icon.

This past weekend, World No.1 Serena Williams took to the stage at the MTV VMAs to present none other than Beyoncé herself.

Serena, who was featured in the singer’s visual album Lemonade, introduced her good friend and fellow tennis fan before the pop star tore up the stage in what was arguably the performance of the night.

And then the next day, Osaka – big fan of Serena and Beyoncé – sang the same songs on her way to the US Open second round.

Sometimes things really do come full circle.

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