當時年僅 15歲的大坂直美,雖然在日本選手代表資格賽的初賽就輸掉,但大坂直美的表現受到日本網球協會女網教練吉川真司的賞識,吉川真司隨即聯繫日本女網隊。此後,大坂直美只要一回到日本,就能利用味之素運動訓練中心(味の素ナショナルトレーニングセンター, Japan Sport Council),也和吉川真司保持聯繫。
Translator: Foreign media — they’re saying that your performance and victories remind us of old-style Japanese. How do you think of those comments or what do you think of your own identity.
Naomi Osaka: Wait, me? I’m old-style Japanese? Translator: No, well, you remind everyone of the old Japanese-style of…… Naomi Osaka: Tennis? Translator: I haven’t really seen the article. Naomi Osaka: Wait, tennis?
“I don’t really think too much about my identity or whatever. For me, I’m just me. And I know that the way that I was brought up. I don’t know, people tell me I act kind of Japanese so I guess there’s that. But other than that, if you were talking about tennis I think my tennis is very — not very Japanese.” — Naomi Osaka, 2018/9/12
reporter: yesterday I see that one of your sponsors whitewashing promotional campaign in Japan I was wondering if you had an opinion on that?
Naomi Osaka: yeah I mean for me and just focused on this right now like I’ve gotten to the final of a slam and that’s sort of my main priorities.
(reporter: the campaign has been taken off the media yet)
Naomi Osaka: I’ve talked to them and they’ve apologized and for me. It’s obvious I’m tan. It’s pretty obvious. I don’t think they did it on purpose to be like whitewashing or anything, but I definitely think that the next time they try portrait me or something. I feel like they should talk to me about it.
I just want to go back to something you said earlier because I was having conversation with someone else about this. It seems like the controversy over the Nissin ad mostly came from westerners, like people who are objecting to it, and I know like in other context like there’s been sort of a misunderstanding I think about the way Japanese people are drawn in manga and to westernize it looks like oh you guys just make everybody looks white. You know but we have yellow hair or whatever, and Japanese people are like no that’s not the case I feel like. This is maybe just is this an example of cross-cultural like misunderstanding and like is your star rises, you know, and you are like a star in Japan and American start to pay more attention to you and Haitians start to pay more attention to you. How do you sort of see juggling that.
Naomi Osaka:
There is a lot of Japanese and reporters in here, so you can ask them about you know the drawing thing. I think, for me, like, I get what people are upset about it, but then, because the person that do that is, I’m not really sure but I think he’s the creator of “Prince of Tennis” but I think you’ll have to do research on it, like, to see if he has ever done things like this before, but I mean, to be honest, I haven’t paid too much attention to this, it’s sort of the fist time that anyone has asked me this question so I don’t really wanna say anything wrong at this point and I think I should do my research before I answer. Is that OK?
大坂直美在 24號的記者會上,明確地講出:「I’ve talked to them and they’ve apologized and for me……,but I definitely think that the next time they try portrait me or something. I feel like they should talk to me about it.」換言之,大坂直美在事前絕對沒有看過這支廣告。如此一來,就會和日清食品最初的說法產生矛盾:因為在廣告下架之前,日清食品堅稱大坂直美已經看過廣告了。
“I’m not sure if it’s feeling grown up or being able to dissociate my feelings,” she said afterward. “I don’t know if that makes sense. Like, you know how some people get worked up about things? That’s a very human thing to do. Sometimes, I don’t know, like I feel like I don’t want to waste my energy doing stuff like that. I think about this on the court, too. In the third set of my match today, I literally just tried to turn off all my feelings. So that’s why I wasn’t yelling as much in the third set. I’m not sure if that makes me grown up. I don’t think so.” — Naomi Osaka, 2019/01/27
事實上,如果要看出大坂直美的幽默風趣,從她的貼文風格最直接:
在大坂直美對戰台灣選手謝淑薇時,不慎跌到落地,打趣地揮一下手示意自己沒事。
「我以為我很高,直到我看到這張照片😖😂」
「快碰到了」
Naomi Osaka, Final, Day 13, 26 January 2019. Photo: Ben Solomon/Tennis Australia via AO