Naomi Osaka rocks Kobe Bryant's jersey during media duties in US Open: "I can kind of keep his spirit with me"
Naomi Osaka wore a Kobe Bryant No. 8 jersey after defeating No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of the 2024 US Open tournament. It was Osaka's first win over a Top 10 player in four years, securing an impressive 6-3 6-2 victory over her Latvian counterpart.
In her postgame press conference, Osaka explained why she wore the LA Lakers legend jersey. It was also not the first time she rocked a Bryant uniform when talking to the media.
"I think for me I always wear Kobe jerseys after matches and practices because I feel like a little bit, like, I can kind of keep his spirit with me," Osaka said.
Naomi Osaka currently ranks 85th in the world and has not won a Grand Slam tournament since taking home the 2021 Australian Open title. Osaka faced some mental health issues following her win that year before taking a hiatus in 2023 due to pregnancy.
The 26-year-old tennis star is also a two-time US Open champion, winning in 2018 and 2020. She was eliminated in the third round in 2021 and never made it out of the first round in 2022.
Nevertheless, it's an encouraging sign to see her beat a Top 10 player to advance to the second round, wherein she'll face Czechia's Karolina Muchova. With Kobe Bryant's "Mamba Mentality" running through her veins, she could return to the top.
Kobe Bryant helped Naomi Osaka get through adversity in her career
Before his unfortunate death on January 26, 2020, Kobe Bryant served as Naomi Osaka's mentor. They formed a relationship that helped Osaka overcome some of the toughest times in her career.
Even after Bryant's death, the Japanese tennis star still uses what the LA Lakers legend told him years ago. She instantly became the face of the sport in the late 2010s but the constant pressure from the media caused her too much stress.
"I remember he told me, 'Imagine that you're a lion and you're hunting your prey. So you see a deer off in the distance and if you watch Animal Planet, you always see the lions looking at their prey, and they have gnats around their eyes. Think of the media and the press as gnats, and you're the lion, so never get distracted. And you never see the lion trying to swat away the flies or anything like that,'" Osaka said back in 2021. [H/T Vanity Fair]
Osaka's best finish of the current season was a quarterfinal exit at the Qatar Open against Karolína Pliskova.