Shame and Seed Success from Montreal – Tennis Now

By Richard Pagliaro | Saturday, August 23, 2025Photo credit: Omnium Banque Nationale Facebook

Former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka stands alone in this US Open field.

The 25th-ranked Osaka is the lone woman over the past decade to win two US Open championships.

Meeting the media in Flushing Meadows today, Osaka said she’s in a good place physically and mentally and feels invigorated working with new coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, who guided Iga Swiatek to multiple major championships. 

“I think mentally, physically, I mean, I’m working with a new coach. He’s really great,” Osaka said. “I don’t know. He’s just incredibly helpful. He cuts to the chase, and he makes me feel like he’s kind of anencyclopedia of tennis, so it’s good to have someone like that in your corner.

“Physically, I feel really good. I feel like I’m getting to balls very quickly, so that’s very helpful, because it makes me feel not as pressured to try to end the point. Given we kind of adapt our, like, game plan to who I’m playing, yeah, it should be a really interesting tournament.”

The four-time Grand Slam champion is coming off an intriguing run to the Montreal final that concluded in controversy.

Eighteen-year-old Canadian Vicky Mboko scored a stunning 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 win over her tennis hero, Osaka, to capture the Canadian Open and cap a historic Cinderella story finish in front of a home crowd.  Mboko defeated four Grand Slam champion—Sofia Kenin, Coco Gauff, Elena Rybakina and Osaka—en route to that championship becoming the second-youngest woman in WTA history, after Serena Williams at the 1999 US Open, to achieve that feat.

During the trophy presentation, Osaka spoke for only about 20 seconds and failed to congratulate the Canadian wild card on her maiden championship. Today, Osaka said had mixed emotions over her Montreal final run feeling both “shame” for neglecting to congratulate Mboko and success for securing a seed at the US Open by virtue of her final finish.

“My biggest goal was to be seeded in a tournament, and that’s something that kind of I knewimmediately,” Osaka said. “Then no, because I just felt really bad and, like, shame. I think I felt worse for my team, because we couldn’t really celebrate properly.

“They were with me this entire time, so they knew how big of a deal the final was. Just knowingthat I can go back to I don’t want to say “that level,” but just know that I can be there.”

The day after the Montreal final, Osaka issued an apology and congratulations to Mboko on social media. Osaka said today she feels “terrible” about the post-match speech and later spoke to the teenager personally to offer congratulations.

“Like, I feel really terrible if that, like, somehow impacted her humongous success,” Osaka said. “But she said it didn’t and she didn’t even really notice, so I was really glad about that. I was also really glad that she’s such a sweet girl, which also just made me feel terrible even more.

“Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like for me, I was just trying to get through it so quickly that I forget a lot of things. And even going into the final, I wanted to, like, potentially write my speech, because I know how I am talking and doing speeches. So that was, like, kind of a lesson to stick to my instinct a little.”

Osaka, who opens against Greet Minnen on Louis Armstrong Stadium, said she’ll make two adjustments the next time she plays a final: write a speech in advance and “I will definitely remember to congratulate my opponents.”