Naomi Osaka

During a game on Sunday, a spectator was heard heckling at Naomi Osaka, apparently shouting, “Naomi, you suck.”

The Williams family have insisted that the heckling was due to racism. Osaka lost the first set, 0-6, then the entire match, after going on to lose the second set, 4-6. The heckler was heard calling out to the 24-year old champion early in the first set, interrupting her game.

'Part of the game': Tennis stars' hard truth for Osaka after heckling drama.

The sisters boycotted the tournament for years, only returning to Indian Wells in 2015. “I don’t know why, but it went into my head, and it got replayed a lot. “So, I feel for Naomi, that obviously it upset her a lot, but it’s always been something that’s been part of sport as well. “I understand that probably Naomi, suffered a lot with these, probably kind of issues that she has, mental (health) issues. “The easy answer for me is I feel terrible about what happened, that never should happen,” Nadal said. “If you go and watch a basketball match, for example, and a player’s taking free throws, I would say like almost every basketball match I’ve been to one of the players has been heckled by the crowd as well.

The four-time grand slam champion was reduced to tears by a heckler at Indian Wells. But abuse from the stands appears to be on the increase.

Osaka has been struggling to deal with the demands of being in the spotlight and she’s had a very rough 12 months. One of the greatest athletes on the planet, who no doubt has accomplished more and worked harder for such than the woman who felt it was OK to yell such a thing. In soccer, England players were racially abused by their own ‘supporters’ after their loss at last year’s European Championship; the NBA has banned fans for confronting players at games; and NFL players were booed during a moment of silence to acknowledge inequality. And, indeed, the sisters had already faced off on a bigger stage when Venus defeated Serena in the semi-finals of Wimbledon in 2000, just eight months prior. And while Richard Williams left himself open for criticism with his highly unconventional – and extraordinarily successful – coaching techniques, the thought that the sisters would conspire and rob the event of fair competition was a stretch. Naomi Osaka’s emotional, tear-filled comments after she was heckled during her second-round loss in Indian Wells on Saturday immediately drew comparisons to the infamous incident at the same tournament in 2001 when the Williams sisters were mercilessly – and unjustly - booed.

After being heckled by a fan at Indian Wells, it seems fair and reasonable to ask whether the women's tennis star could use more time away to find answers ...

At best, it’s a sign people are invested in the product. There was nothing out of the ordinary about a top-tier athlete getting thrown off her game by a lone heckler. By Osaka’s own admissions over the past year, conflict and confrontation can cause her anxiety. The news is we’ve produced a culture that celebrates weakness and victimhood.” On the other baseline: Anything other than full-throated and unconditional support for Osaka was found lacking in empathy and sympathy. On Saturday, she was playing her second match at Indian Wells, against Russian Veronika Kudermetova. Early in the match, a fan yelled, “You suck.” (That she implied it was motivated by racial animus made it all the more fraught.) She has hauled in more than $100 million in endorsements and lit the torch at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. And still, she is unsettled by conflict and confrontation and partisan fans. She then referenced a previous moment of heckling at Indian Wells. It was not her match from 2018. But he brought with him the same sensibilities he would to a Rams or Dodgers or Lakers game and began to yap at the opponent. Vickery—a young American inspired by the Williams sisters and who came to tennis not via country clubs but when her grandmother bought her a racket at a Dollar Store—brought a considerable fan section to this big match. And the tournament. It takes place in Indian Wells, Calif., at the BNP Paribas Open. Naomi Osaka was on one side of the net.

Naomi Osaka was heckled during her second-round loss at Indian Wells on Saturday and asked to address the crowd afterward to explain why it made her so ...

She is next slated to play at the Miami Open later this month as a wild card. The crowd then directed its ire on Serena throughout her match, and the jeers continued even after Serena defeated Kim Clijsters for the title. "But after that moment, I saw that Naomi, she start to cry." Kudermetova waited behind the baseline for the match to resume. Some believed Richard manipulated matches between his daughters following Venus' withdrawal due to an injury ahead of their semifinal match at the event. In between games shortly after, Osaka asked if she could use the umpire's microphone to address the crowd.

Naomi Osaka leaves the court in tears after her second-round loss at Indian Wells. Clive Brunskill/Getty Images. Naomi Osaka's history at ...

What’s relevant is that Osaka is still drawing that connection in her mind, mid-match, upon hearing the kind of nondescript remark she has likely brushed off dozens of times in the past. As a competitor, she’s a long way from the mindset that wins seven matches in a row, the high standard she’s set for herself. Osaka asked to use the mic to address the crowd—a long shot—and was denied. After Osaka dropped her first service game, a heckler in the crowd shouted, “Naomi, you suck!” Osaka asked the chair umpire to eject the heckler from the crowd, and the umpire declined. She thanked them, and explained that the heckling caused her to replay in her mind the infamous, stadium-wide booing of the Williams family in 2001, which traumatized the sisters so deeply that they refused to compete at Indian Wells for over a decade. When she returned to the desert in 2019, she was already the No. 1 player on tour.