LIFESTYLE Naomi Osaka: Time Means Everything

Ben Rothenberg Sportswriter

In tennis, taking time away from your opponent is the key to victory. But as Naomi Osaka showed the world, sometimes the key to long-term success in tennis is learning how to give time to yourself.

Take a glance at the court of any of the world’s most prestigious tennis stadiums and there’s always a common sight just beyond the lines, tucked into a corner but always visible: two ticking clocks. One clock, digital, shows the elapsed time since the match began. The second clock, analog, shows the time of day as it would appear on any TAG Heuer watch on wrists around the stadium.

But the clocks inside a tennis stadium doesn’t determine when a match ends, like in football or basketball, nor does it measure the victories of the fastest racers on a running track. Instead, the clocks on the tennis court seem to serve as windows into world beyond the walls of the stadium, a reminder that time continues and persists despite the magical manipulation of it by the players inside. 

Because when a tennis player steps to the line and swings her racquet, she dictates time. She makes time do what she wants it to do, much like the conductor of an orchestra waves a baton to determine how the musicians before her will behave. Time in tennis means rhythm. Time in tennis means control. Time in tennis means dominance

Professional tennis player and ambassador, Naomi Osaka, wearing the TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 Date (ref: WBP231K.FT6234)

The music Naomi Osaka makes with her racquet would be notated in a classical music score with words like allegro, vivace, sforzando. She plays fast, lively, and with sudden bursts of strength. Whether she’s serving or returning, the first strike of the ball against Naomi’s racquet sends it whirring across the net. The ball becomes a metronome that challenges anyone else holding an instrument to keep up or get left behind. Naomi quickens the pace time and again, putting the ball further and further from her opponent, faster and faster. 

Some players thrive by changing the pace throughout a point or a match, speeding up and slowing down the tempo. But for Naomi, the direction on court is always to go faster, quicker, stronger. When she controls the tempo of the match, she wins it. The more difficult control for Naomi to gain over time, however, has been away from the court. 

Naomi has been spending time at tennis courts since the earliest time she can remember; some of her earliest memories as a toddler in Japan are of watching her older sister, Mari, practicing while Naomi was still too young to swing a racquet. Tennis was imprinted on her at a time even before that, when her parents watched Venus and Serena Williams winning the 1999 French Open doubles title together and envisioned similar possibilities for their own daughters.

Professional tennis player and ambassador, Naomi Osaka, wearing the TAG Heuer Aquaracer Professional 300 Date (ref: WBP231K.FT6234)

Don’t waste any time

Soon, both daughters were spending hours on courts each day, a time commitment that propelled the family to move from Japan to New York and then New York to Florida. Naomi was always playing catch-up to her older sister, determined to make up for the advantages in age and experience that Mari had eventually. It took more than 10 years, but Naomi finally beat Mari for the first time when the two were teenagers.

Naomi was just as eager to start her own pro career, not wanting to waste a possible moment of time she was eligible to play. In fact, due to a loophole in the rules, Naomi managed to play her first professional match at a small tournament in Jamaica one day before her 14th birthday. 

Naomi played as much as she could from then on, and seized her earliest opportunities on the biggest stages. In her very first match in the main draw of a WTA tournament, she beat former US Open champion Samantha Stosur. Naomi was then the youngest player voted into the WTA’s “Rising Stars” tournament, a showcase for the next generation of talent. Naomi, far less experienced than the other players, won the event.

Soon after Naomi was playing in Grand Slam events, and within a couple years, she reached her first major final against her idol Serena Williams. Naomi rushed and flustered Serena with her powerful strokes, and won the 2018 US Open, her first major title at just 20 years old. Naomi wasted no time getting her second major at the earliest possible opportunity, the 2019 Australian Open, a triumph that launched her to the WTA No. 1 ranking for the first time. A year earlier, she had been ranked 70th; no one had ever climbed to the No. 1 ranking from such a low spot in just a year, but Naomi was using her time as quickly as she could.   

But as successes started to pile up for Naomi, her time away from the court became more scarce. The pandemic in 2020 gave her time to rest, refresh, and recharge, setting her up to win her third and fourth major titles, but after spending time back on tour during the next season Naomi felt herself wearing down.

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A new beginning

In January 2021, she became a TAG Heuer ambassador and remarkably won the Australian Open just a few weeks later.

But at the French Open, Naomi did something radical: instead of taking time away from her opponents, she gave herself time away from the court. Time to process, time to rest, time to heal. She took another break at the end of the 2021 season, and after returning for the 2022 season, Naomi took another long break time for the tour, this time both for herself and for the baby daughter growing inside her. 

 

When she came back to the tour this year, Naomi showed a whole new appreciation of time. She had a focus about her work, knowing that time she was spending training or competing was time away from her daughter. She also had a greater sense for a long career, no doubt in part inspired by Serena Williams playing until the age of 40. But Naomi also mixed her urgent on-court tennis with a gentler approach to herself, no longer castigating herself if success didn’t come as immediately as she’d hoped. Over time, Naomi had learned to be patient with herself.

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Ben Rothenberg Sportswriter

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