What it was like to watch Naomi Osaka up close during her vexing 2021 US Open

NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka did not want to be cut off. She did not want to be rescued. Yes, she was crying in her US Open postmatch news conference, crying as she struggled to find the right words so she could share what was on her mind, but each time the moderator tried to end it, assuming Osaka didn’t want to continue, Osaka overruled him. She was determined to get this out.

“Recently, when I win, I don’t feel happy,” Osaka said late Friday night. “I only feel relief. When I lose, I feel very sad. And I don’t think that’s normal. Basically, I feel like I’m kind of at this point where I’m trying to figure out what I want to do. I honestly don’t know when I’m going to play my next tennis match. I think I’m going to take a break from playing for a while.”

It was a stunning moment, and it might take on extra weight in the coming months — and years — if Osaka never plays professional tennis again. This isn’t the first time Osaka has announced she needed to take a break from the sport. She was, after all, coming off an extended break that saw her withdraw from the French Open and skip Wimbledon. But this felt different. Sitting in the room, I wondered whether I had just listened to a retirement speech. Osaka was clearly hurting, but before she slipped out of sight, she was going to find the composure to tell the world something.

She was not OK. And she wanted to admit that.

“I guess we’re all dealing with some stuff,” Osaka said. “But I know I’m dealing with some stuff.”

Ever since Osaka withdrew from the French Open after being informed she’d be fined increasing amounts if she didn’t consent to postmatch interviews, it felt as if Osaka was asking, just for a while, to let her tennis speak for itself. At least until the world felt less awful for her and talking made her less anxious.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized: Was she really asking for that much? And what did it say about us if we cared more about the talking than the tennis?

Maybe instead of longing for sound bites, we might learn something by slowing down and observing, letting her physical gifts reverberate in our consciousness, because a perfectly struck forehand has a language all its own. So does a racket thrown in anger.

I made a vow to watch — to truly watch — Osaka move through time and space at the US Open. No questions, no quotes. I was just going to write what I saw.

What I saw, I now realize, was someone in pain.

I wonder if what I witnessed was an ending.

But also, maybe, a beginning.

Osaka’s first-round match against Marie Bouzkova on Aug. 30 felt, for flashes, like a triumphant return to form. Despite all that had unfolded in the past last year, Osaka came to Queens as the defending champion. The last time she’d played a match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, she’d walked away with her second US Open trophy.

She was light on her toes as the match began, shifting her weight back and forth, trying to find her center. Most tennis players do this, unconsciously fidgeting to quiet their mind before the ball is in the air, the moment when they ask instinct and training to take over. But with Osaka, it has always felt a little deliberate, as if she is trying to persuade…