Naomi Osaka snubs US Open title over Serena Williams to name ‘special’ Coco Gauff as her ‘mountaintop moment’
Naomi Osaka rates her 2019 US Open third round matchup against Coco Gauff as the best moment of her career.
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Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka pose before their match. (credits: Insider)
Former US Open champion Naomi Osaka has been a sheer force in the heart of the women’s tennis world. Having turned pro at the age of just 15, she took the sport by storm beating senior players in her teenage days. She also made it to the top of the pile after beating Serena Williams way back in 2018 in the final of the US Open registering her first-ever Grand Slam title.
But Osaka still doesn’t speak highly of her victory in the final against the 23-time Grand Slam winner, rather rates another player as the toughest opponent she faced in her career. Among hundreds of matches she has played till now, Naomi looks back on the 2019 third-round win against American star Coco Gauff as her ‘mountaintop moment’. Osaka won the match on straight sets by 6-3, 6-0.
This can be due to a couple of reasons: Gauff was during that time one of the highest-rated players in the world. And having made it to the top at a very young age, Gauff had a very incredible rags-to-riches story. Osaka later looked back on that match saying, “We grew up in the same area. I watched her play with her dad. I knew she’d be great. We were 2 kids who came from this 1 area playing in the biggest stadium in tennis..that might be my most memorable moment.”
How have Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff fared since their famous US Open encounter?
A lot has changed since Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff’s 2019 US Open matchup. The Japanese star went on to win three more Grand Slam titles reaching the absolute top of the world in the next couple of years whereas Coco is still finding her ways to lift her first Grand Slam title. Naomi won the 2019 and 2021 Australian Open beating Petra Kvitova and Jennifer Brady in the final.
Osaka also lifted the US Open in the year 2020 beating Victoria Azarenka. Gauff has been going through a rough patch for the last couple of months hitting the absolute rock bottom after going 12 consecutive matches without a win. She has been accused of match-fixing and also fans around the world also forced her to sack her father who was serving as a coach.
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Soumyadeep Mondal
(882 Articles Published)