Naomi Osaka was knocked out of the women’s singles tennis at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday when she suffered a surprise defeat in the third round of competition to Marketa Vondrousova of the Czech Republic.
Vondrousova, the 2019 French Open runner-up, is ranked no. 42 in the world. She beat Osaka, who is ranked no. 2, in just 1 hour and 8 minutes of play. That makes Vondrousova the first player to move through to the quarter-finals.
Vondrousova beat Osaka 6-1, 6-4 in the third round of competition at the Ariake Tennis Park. The roof was closed on Tuesday due to rain from the incoming Tropical Storm Nepartak.
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Osaka, 23, easily won her first two rounds of competition after taking a two-month mental health break, missing both the French Open and Wimbledon. On Saturday, she defeated Zheng Saisai of China. She beat No. 49-ranked Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland in the second round on Monday.
Osaka went into the Olympics as a favorite to win gold, and acknowledged the pressure after her loss. “I mean, I’m disappointed in every loss, but I feel like this one sucks more than the others,” Osaka told reporters.
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.”
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The tennis star, who was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, was representing Japan in this year’s Olympics. She lit the Olympic cauldron at the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony on Friday.