Japanese professional tennis player, Naomi Osaka, copied legendary Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, as she grabbed an Evian water bottle that had been placed on the table and placed it out of sight during her press conference.
It was not very clear why the top-seeded tennis player, who reached the US Open quarter-finals while playing some excellent tennis in New York, took this drastic step.
After Naomi’s action, a video of the same was uploaded on social media, which went viral and people reacted to it too.
What has happened?
The controversial incident occurred in the early hours of Wednesday morning when Osaka was fielded questions at a press conference before her semi-finals against Karolina Muchova.
While a journalist was asking her a question, the four Grand Slam winner grabbed an Evian water bottle and removed it from the table and carried on with the press conference as normal.
Evian is one of the US Open’s main sponsors, and its bottles have been prominently displayed throughout the tournament.
Earlier, Ronaldo did the same in a press conference during Euro 2020 had removed two Coca-Cola bottles before holding up a bottle of water and saying in Portuguese: “Water!”
Reacting to the incident, Coca Cola has responded by saying, “Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences.”
Here’s how netizens reacted:
One wrote, “Carlos fights for Evian, Naomi fights against Evian, Evian gets more publicity than it pays for lol”
Another wrote, “It brought even more attention to Evian.”
A third wrote, “Cringe. This isn’t a ‘No Coca Cola’ moment. Its just water.”
“I’m surprised she won’t get fined for this considering Evian lay to be advertised here at PC,” a fourth wrote.”
What Osaka said?
During the PC, Osaka said, as quoted by express.co.uk, “I think, for me, the main thing I want to take away from this tournament is just smiling and having fun.”
“I know in my first round I was too nervous to smile, and my match against Kasatkina was just really not smiley at all. Going into this match [against Gauff], I just wanted to be grateful. Yeah, I mean, she’s one of the best players in the world.
“For me, honestly, I have the most fun when I play against the best players. I love when they hit amazing shots or they hit aces, because you know, that’s how they won the tournaments that they won. I always see it as a challenge. Yeah, I like challenges.”
She also commented on the Taylor Townsend and Jelena Ostapenko situation at US Open. Osaka said, “It’s one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority White sport.”
“I think it’s ill timing and the worst person you could have ever said it to. And I don’t know if Ostapenko knows the history of it in America.”
