To Play Tennis, Naomi Osaka Finds a New Purpose. So Far, So Good.

The defending champion started the U.S. Open with a solid 6-4, 6-1 win over Marie Bouzkova, a hard-hitting Czech. Feeling good about herself is the next challenge.

Naomi Osaka was back on the tennis court in New York on Monday night, not far from where she first started hitting a tennis ball in earnest as a child, and where her year of years began 12 months and what seems like a lifetime ago. The journey began with her refusal to play tennis after another police shooting of a Black man. Then came her provocative and powerful masks, each adorned with the name of a victim of police violence, as well as the third Grand Slam title of her career. Then there were magazine covers; a magical run in Australia; a standoff with the press in Paris; revelations that she struggles with mental health; her decision to skip Wimbledon, the biggest championship in tennis; followed by a triumphant-until-it-wasn’t return in Tokyo, where she lit the Olympic cauldron for her home country. Osaka has become the rare tennis player whose presence raises the temperature, even of something routine: a first-round match against an unheralded but improving 23-year-old Czech named Marie Bouzkova.