Naomi Osaka’s No-Filter Era Catches Andy Roddick Off Guard Amid Wimbledon Drama

Naomi Osaka and the press. It’s been a weird story for the last few years. Remember, in 2021, she refused to interact with the media during the French Open while citing mental health reasons? “I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes’ mental health, and this rings true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one.” Result? She opted to boycott mandatory press conferences after her matches at the clay slam. Cut to 2025, the four-time slam queen seems to have left that defensive shell and come out of it. She might be on a losing streak, with back-to-back failures. But to her, all of this hardly matters now. And she doesn’t shy away from confessing it – in front of the media.

On Friday, the former World No.1’s Wimbledon campaign came to a tragic end. While she looked great in the first two rounds at the grass major, Osaka couldn’t carry the momentum in the third round clash with Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. The latter made a strong comeback after being a set down. She eventually won with a scoreline of 3-6, 6-4, 6-4. And Osaka? You’d think she is disappointed with another heartbreaking exit in a slam following her Paris debacle. Think again. In fact, she hardly felt anything. “I think in Paris… when I sat here, I was very emotional. Now I don’t feel anything. I guess I prefer to feel nothing than everything.”

Well, this side of Osaka has really amazed former American pro Andy Roddick. He couldn’t help but admire Osaka for her honesty and unapologetic confidence while interacting with the press on Friday. In an episode of his Served podcast, the 2003 US Open winner commented, “I think she went from someone who didn’t like facing the press and didn’t really say much to someone who might not give any f—- and tells you exactly what she feels all the time.”

“Like after Paris she just went, ‘I feel terrible, I let me down’. And today she’s like, ‘I don’t feel nothing. In Paris, I felt everything and here I lost and I feel nothing.'” As per Roddick, “The clarity is something that I feel everybody should feel comfortable in.”

There is more. Osaka even went on to lash out at certain media houses for how they treat her reactions. Especially when she loses. Pointing out an alleged bias, she took to her Threads account, “Bro why is it every time I do a press conference after a loss the espns and blogs gotta clip it and put it up. Wtf, why don’t they clip my press conferences after I win? Like why push the narrative that I’m always sad?”

She didn’t stop there, though. Sharing another update, the two-time Australian Open winner wrote, “Sure I was disappointed a couple hours ago, now I’m motivated to do better. That’s human emotions. The way they clip me, I feel like I should be fake happy all the time.”

Osaka is going through an unfortunate phase. Earlier this season, she captured her maiden title on clay in Saint-Malo, and it seemed like an indication of good times to come. But she couldn’t replicate this success at the French Open. And then came the grass season – a nightmare for her. First in Berlin and then at the Bad Homburg Open, the former World No.1 crashed out early. But nothing hurts more than having to leave with a heavy heart, again, from Wimbledon.

Wimbledon curse continues to haunt Naomi Osaka

This may be hard to believe, but Wimbledon happens to be the only slam where Naomi Osaka is yet to even reach the quarterfinals, let alone the semis or the summit clash. In fact, she’s never been able to cross the third round hurdle at the All England Club. The latest campaign once again proved it after her defeat against Pavlyuchenkova.

So far, she’s appeared at the Wimbledon five times. And guess what? Her best run includes only reaching the R32 (third round) in 2017, 2018, and now in 2025, after seven years, that she’s made it to the third round. Last year, she was ousted in the second round after losing to America’s Emma Navarro.

Curious about Osaka’s problem with grass? Back in 2019, she talked about the challenges of playing on the surface. During the Wimbledon Media Day, the Japanese star revealed, “If you ask me right now, I would say for me grass is the hardest surface to learn because I’ve played on clay, despite the fact that it was green clay when I was little.”

She mentioned that she wasn’t exposed to the green surface until she was 16 or 17. “You only technically play on grass for three weeks out of the year, opposed to the clay season. I just feel like my brain has to work way harder every day than the clay season.”

The good thing is, there’s still one more slam left this season. And it’s the one Osaka has captured twice – the US Open. Can she rediscover herself, regain the lost spirits, and take a shot at her fifth major at the Flushing Meadows? Only time will tell.

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