Andy Murray says tennis players have had to learn to be prepared for hecklers after Naomi Osaka was thrown to tears by the crowd during her Indian Wells defeat to Veronika Kudermetova.
Osaka, 24-year-old, who took time out to take care of her mental health in the 2021 season, was upset by a crowd shouting ‘Naomi, you suck’.
She complained to the umpire and then lost the match 6-0, 6-4. She even asked the referee if she could use their microphone to address the crowd at one point in the match.
‘I need to speak to my supervisor. What do you want to say?’ replied the chair umpire.
“I just want to say something,” Osaka replied. “I’m not going to curse. I don’t curse. It just weighs on my heart.’
However, the chair umpire who chose to discuss the emotional situation with WTA Tour supervisor Claire Wood – declined Osaka’s request to address the crowd. She said giving a player a microphone during a match was unprecedented
“It’s a difficult one,” Murray said after his tournament defeat to Alexander Bublik. “I’ve often thought of watching certain sports, I wouldn’t say I’ve seen it a lot in tennis I know it’s happened, but I don’t think it’s that common in tennis but when I go to a watch a football game and a player goes in for a throw-in or a corner and the crowd just throw insults at those individuals, i always think, you know, how is that allowed? You can’t.
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‘If you do that to someone when you are walking down the street or in another work environment, that will of course not be tolerated.
“I’ve also played in certain areas of tennis myself, such as Davis Cup atmospheres, away from home, especially where the atmosphere is intense, and sometimes things get said and it’s not that comfortable.
“The people who come to watch, of course you want them to be there and support the players and not make it more difficult for them. I don’t know, but it’s also something that’s always been part of sports.
“So I feel for Naomi that it clearly upset her, but it’s always been part of the sport as well. So you have to be prepared for that in a certain way and be able to tolerate it, because it occurs regularly in all sports.’