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Saturday at Arthur Ashe Stadium, it was hard to miss the fireworks, but as Naomi Osaka, champion of the US Open, said, she was not exactly in tune.
"When you're little, you're taught not to watch if your opponent gets angry or anything, you're told to turn around and try to concentrate, so I tried to do it, "said the 20-year-old superstar. Wednesday on "Ellen".
"But in my mind, I was sort of, I really wanted to know what was going on."
Osaka's opponent, the favorite of the fans, Serena Williams, melted on the court, explaining in front of the chair umpire Carlos Ramos after being penalized for being trained by his coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. Later, she was penalized for racquet abuse and gave up an entire game for calling Ramos a "thief."
"I was looking elsewhere, but I heard a lot of people in the crowd making noises, and I really wanted to turn around, but I did not do it," Osaka said.
While Osaka was crowned the winner of this year's tournament, after a dominant 6-2, 6-4 performance, Williams offered a few words to the young champion as the boos continued to weaken.
"She said she was proud of me and I should know that the crowd would not make me happy," Osaka said. "I was really happy that she said that."
Although Osaka "thought" that the crowd was nodding, she had time to reflect on the emotional stress of the situation.
"I can sympathize because I've been a Serena fan all my life and I knew how much the crowd wanted her to win," Osaka said Monday on the "Today" show. "I do not know, I was really very emotional up there."
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