Sandy
07-27-2021, 07:02 AM
The coddlers put so much hope on this magic niggeress, even letting it light the flame.
TOKYO — It’s tennis, where upsets and off days are commonplace, especially when you haven’t played in nearly two months.
Still, for Naomi Osaka, the Japanese-American star, being eliminated in the third round of the Japanese Olympics that you kicked off by lighting the cauldron just days ago will, no doubt, sting for a while.
Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic played a brilliant match though, repeatedly breaking Osaka’s serve in the first set and putting the four-time major champion on her heels to win convincingly, 6-1, 6-4.
For Osaka, this was an event set up for her. It was chance to return to the country of her birth (she and her family moved to New York when she was three) and serve as a beacon of excitement for an Olympics that has been beset with COVID delays, unpopularity among the public and empty grandstands.
The IOC even moved her first-round match from Saturday to Sunday — a rare bit of flexibility — so she could enjoy the immense honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron at Friday’s Opening Ceremony (while Tokyo 2020 drafted off her popularity, of course).
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/naomi-osaka-face-of-the-tokyo-olympics-knocked-out-in-third-round-054019523.html
TOKYO — It’s tennis, where upsets and off days are commonplace, especially when you haven’t played in nearly two months.
Still, for Naomi Osaka, the Japanese-American star, being eliminated in the third round of the Japanese Olympics that you kicked off by lighting the cauldron just days ago will, no doubt, sting for a while.
Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic played a brilliant match though, repeatedly breaking Osaka’s serve in the first set and putting the four-time major champion on her heels to win convincingly, 6-1, 6-4.
For Osaka, this was an event set up for her. It was chance to return to the country of her birth (she and her family moved to New York when she was three) and serve as a beacon of excitement for an Olympics that has been beset with COVID delays, unpopularity among the public and empty grandstands.
The IOC even moved her first-round match from Saturday to Sunday — a rare bit of flexibility — so she could enjoy the immense honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron at Friday’s Opening Ceremony (while Tokyo 2020 drafted off her popularity, of course).
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/naomi-osaka-face-of-the-tokyo-olympics-knocked-out-in-third-round-054019523.html