Defeated, insulted, Naomi Osaka burst into tears

Naomi Osaka was knocked out in the second round of the Indian Wells Open after being brought to tears on the court by an insult from a spectator.

The four-times grand slam champion from Japan was left deeply upset by a female heckler shouting,

“Naomi, you suck,” during the early stages of her 6-0, 6-4 defeat by Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova. Osaka, 24, has admitted previously that she has suffered “bouts of depression” during her career and took a break from the tour last year to protect her mental health.

After the match, Osaka took the unusual step of directly addressing the crowd, a privilege that is normally reserved for the winner in matches before the final. Breaking down in tears again, she claimed that the incident had brought back memories of Serena and Venus Williams being heckled at the same venue in 2001.

“I feel like I’ve cried enough on camera,” Osaka said. “To be honest, I’ve been heckled before. It didn’t really bother me. But [to be] heckled here, I’ve watched a video of Venus and Serena getting heckled here and if you’ve never watched it you should watch it. I don’t know why but it went into my head and got replayed a lot.”

The episode that Osaka refers to was one of the most shameful in the history of the sport. After Venus had withdrawn from a scheduled semi-final against Serena with an injury that some fans believed not to be legitimate, Serena was repeatedly booed during the final, while her family, including Venus and father Richard, received racial abuse in the stands. Serena described it as the “darkest moment of her career” and did not return to Indian Wells for 14 years.

The insult directed at Osaka came after she dropped her serve in the opening game. Osaka immediately approached the umpire and asked for the spectator to be ejected, but the perpetrator could not be identified. Two games later, Osaka asked to borrow the umpire’s microphone.

“I just want to say something,” Osaka said. “I’m not going to curse because I don’t curse. It’s weighing on my heart.”

Osaka cried in her courtside chair after a conversation with the tournament supervisor Clare Wood, who declined the request after politely explaining that a player addressing the crowd during a match was unprecedented. Osaka failed to win a game in the first set, suffering her first “bagel” since the Miami Open almost 12 months ago, and did not hold a press conference after the match.

Osaka won her first ever title in Indian Wells four years ago but required a wild card to return here this time because of her present world ranking of No 78. This was only the third event she had played since taking a three-month break in September. Last year she withdrew midway through the French Open because of controversy surrounding her decision not to fulfil mandatory media duties to protect her mental health.

Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal maintained his 16-match unbeaten record this year with another stirring comeback. Six weeks after recovering from going two sets down against Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open final, the 21-times grand slam champion from Spain battled back from a double break down at 2-5 in the deciding set to beat America’s Sebastian Korda 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 (7-3).

Nadal, 35, now goes on to play Great Britain’s Dan Evans in the third round on Monday. Evans defeated Argentina’s Federico Coria 6-2, 6-0, while the British No 1 Cameron Norrie comfortably opened the defence of his title with a 6-3, 6-3 victory against Spain’s Pedro Martínez