Can Naomi Osaka Own The Sport, And The Court, Like Serena?

Naomi Osaka has beaten her idol, Serena Williams, on tennis’ biggest stage—and backed it up with another Slam. Can she make the court, and the sport, hers in a way that Williams has?

- Stephen Tignor

The 2018 US Open women’s final between Naomi Osaka and Serena Williams was many things. It was a stunning upset. It was an unmitigated disaster. It was a night of chaos and composure. It was a war between a star player and a stickler chair umpire. When it was over, it became a proxy for arguments about sexism, racism and the rule of law. It was the only thing anyone could talk about for months. As the winner said afterward: “I don’t really know what happened.”

For movie buffs, the match conjured images from that archetypal Hollywood tale of generational rivalry, All About Eve. In the 1951 film, Bette Davis plays a Broadway star who watches as her most devoted fan, one 20 years her junior, takes a job as her understudy, and then takes over her leading role.

Tennis’ version of that Oscar-winning story had all the elements needed for the silver screen.

On one side of Arthur Ashe Stadium was Williams, the 36-year-old superstar who was going for a record-tying 24th Grand Slam singles title. On the other side was Osaka, the soft-spoken 20-year-old who was playing her first Grand Slam final, had won one career tournament and who, as a third-grader, had written an essay about how much she idolized Serena. Sitting in Osaka’s player box was Sascha Bajin, Serena’s former hitting partner who now served as Osaka’s coach.

The story ended with the understudy, rather than the legend, lifting the trophy. But it also came with an unfortunate twist: rather than applauding, the audience greeted the result, which followed three Williams code violations, with a torrential downpour of boos.

“The memory of the US Open is a little bit bittersweet,” Osaka would say later. “I feel like it was so strange, I just didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to just push it to the side.”