Naomi Osaka, the Japanese tennis player suffered a surprise exit in her home Olympics, losing to Czech Marketa Vondrousova in Tokyo.
The 23-year-old player is one of the famous players in the Japanese capital. She also received the honour of lighting the Olympic cauldron in last week’s opening ceremony.
But the four-time Grand Slam champion could not win a medal, losing 6-1 6-4 to the world number 42 in the third round.
“I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this,” said the world number two.
“I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year it was a bit much.”
She rules as the US Open and Australian Open champion and had won 25 of her previous 26 matches on a hard court.
Naomi Osaka recently withdrew from the French Open in June. This was her first tournament after she revealed she had “suffered long bouts of depression” since winning her first Grand Slam title in 2018.
“I think I’m glad with how I played, with taking that break that I had,” she said.
“I’ve taken long breaks before and I’ve managed to do well.
“I’m not saying that I did bad right now, but I do know that my expectations were a lot higher.
“I feel like my attitude wasn’t that great because I don’t really know how to cope with that pressure so that’s the best that I could have done in this situation.”
Following impressive wins in the first two rounds, Osaka looked to be shaping up nicely for a gold-medal bid but produced 32 unforced errors in a rusty performance against former French Open finalist Vondrousova.
The Czech player hit 18 winners against 10 unforced errors as she transformed five of her 11 breakpoints in the match.
Osaka’s exit follows that of Australian top seed Ashleigh Barty in the first round, leaving the women’s singles to draw wide open.
And since Vondrousova won, she will play Spain’s Paula Badosa in the last eight.
Ukrainian fourth seed Elina Svitolina is the highest-ranked player left in the event but she had to fight back to beat Greece’s Maria Sakkari 5-7 6-3 6-4.
Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic beat French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 1-6 6-2 6-3 while Garbine Muguruza beat Alison van Uytvanck 6-4 6-1.
