London: Another grand slam, another grand entrance from Naomi Osaka.
The Japanese former world No.1 made global headlines at this year’s Australian Open when she strode onto Rod Laver Arena in a lavish, jellyfish-inspired outfit before continuing her fashion tour in a glittering gold ensemble at Roland-Garros.
Now, it was Wimbledon’s turn.
Abiding by the All England club’s strict all-white policy, Osaka walked out for her first-round match – which she won 6-1, 7-5 over France’s Elsa Jacquemot – in what British Vogue described as a “love letter to Japanese ceremonial dress”.
The four-time major champion collaborated with Tokyo-based designer Hana Yagi, whose outfit took inspiration from Japanese ceremonial dresses, as well as kirigami, the art of paper cutting.
With her blue Yonex bag draped over her shoulder, a stoic Osaka received a warm ovation for her white kimono gown, made of detachable layers, featuring three-dimensional embroidery of cranes and cherry blossoms, and complete with bell sleeves and an obi belt.
Osaka said she wanted to honour Wimbledon’s all-white tradition, as well as her Japanese heritage, but Quentin Tarantino’s cult film Kill Bill also helped inspire the final design.
“I was thinking about my favourite movies, [and] I love Kill Bill,” Osaka said.
“I remembered absolutely falling in love with Lucy Liu’s character. She has an all-white kimono, and I remember thinking that was really cool and amazing. Then it just kind of went from there. It was like my interpretation of that, while also paying a lot of respect and love to Japan.”
As opposed to her centre-court walk-out at Melbourne Park, Osaka played on court three at Wimbledon, so fans on the grounds received a sneak peek of her outfit.
“I thought that was really fun, just because I didn’t think anyone expected that,” she said.
“I try to lock in a little bit and wear my headphones [before playing]. I could feel when I walked by someone, they would physically turn their whole body. I thought that was really fun. It was cool because I heard some people say, ‘Wow, that’s a really beautiful kimono’ and stuff like that, so it was nice.”
Osaka entered the Wimbledon championships in some doubt with a foot injury that caused her to retire one game into the second set of the Bad Homburg final in Germany only two days before the grand slam.
She not only played, but had little trouble dispatching Jacquemot to move into the second round.
Osaka has never advanced beyond the round of 32 at Wimbledon, but her fans have started calling her “Grass-saka” because of her impressive lead-in form on what has traditionally been her least-preferred surface.
“I think that’s a really cute nickname. Hopefully, I’m able to win a lot more matches for them to be able to continue [using] that,” she said.
“I think from my end, I always considered myself a hardcourt player. I tried to expand my mind a little bit this year with the claycourt season and then coming into this with Tomasz [Wiktorowski, her coach].”
Marc McGowan travelled to London with Tennis Australia’s support.
Watch Wimbledon from 7.30pm Monday (AEST) on the Nine Network and Stan Sport.
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