Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the Tokyo Olympics following an upset loss in the third round of the tennis competition Tuesday, July 27th. Osaka, who has won four major tennis championships, lost to the Czech Republic’s Markéta Vondroušová in two sets, 6 – 1, 6 – 4.
“I’m disappointed in every loss, but I feel like this one sucks more than the others,” Osaka said after the match, per ESPN. She added: “I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this. … I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year [it] was a bit much.”
Osaka, who grew up in the United States but was born in Japan and chose to represent Japan at the Olympics, was notably tapped to light the Olympic cauldron at the Opening Ceremony last week. She called the opportunity “undoubtedly the greatest athletic achievement and honor I will ever have in my life.”
Osaka’s short-lived Olympic run came two months after she dropped out of the French Open in order to take a mental health break. Osaka was also recently the subject of a new three-part docuseries, Naomi Osaka, which chronicled her rise in tennis, the sacrifices that go into being a professional athlete, the pressure of celebrity, and her activism.