Naomi Osaka opened her US Open campaign with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over Greet Minnen as the No. 23 seed. Osaka entered the court with sparkly red roses in her ponytail above a matching red, crystal-embellished Nike outfit and a Labubu named "Billie Jean Bling." The crystalwork on the performance outfit required elaborate effort, and the hairpiece was planned within the last couple of weeks with her stylist. Osaka removed the heavy hair accessory before play, noting the weight made it impractical for actual tennis despite being used for presentation.
"It was really elaborate, because the crystals are really hard to do on a performance outfit," Osaka said. "I just thought it would be really fun to do a New York under the lights. I'm glad that my first match was a night match, because this outfit was really fun to play. This is my night outfit, so hopefully I'll wear my day outfit next time."
"I was like, 'Do you think this is possible?' Maybe it was two weeks ago," Osaka said. "Yeah, we kind of just toss ideas around. Obviously the outcome is way better than I could have imagined."
"I did always know I was going to take the hair off, because it is really heavy," Osaka said. "There were a couple of times that I played in braids, and even that was kind of borderline. So yeah, I just did it for the presentation."
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