Japanese tennis star Naomi Osaka is at the centre of controversy again, losing friends and alienating people as she has done throughout her chequered career. The four-time major champion and current world number 16 has been accused of poor etiquette in a match against the Romanian Sorana Cîrstea at the Australian Open.

Osaka was heard to exclaim ‘Come on!’ repeatedly as a sort of self-motivating exhortation in Thursday’s match. Nothing wrong with that, but one of her ‘come on!’s occurred between her opponent’s first and second serves and provoked Cîrstea to complain to the umpire. Osaka won the contest, but there was a testy exchange at the net and Cîrstea gave Osaka a look that would have curdled milk as she appeared to tell her, ‘You have been playing on the tour so long, you have no idea what fair play is.’ The handshake was perfunctory, to put it mildly.

A few of tennis’ luminaries have weighed in on the matter, with Martina Navratilova, Lindsey Davenport and Jelena Djokovic (Novak’s wife) calling out Osaka for her poor manners. Osaka declared herself ‘confused’ by the furore but seemed to acknowledge in a subsequent interview that she may have been at fault, citing the ‘high emotions’ involved in the contest. Cîrstea shrugged it all off later as ‘no drama’, but it was an ugly incident and an unpleasant way for the veteran to mark her 17th and final, probably, appearance at the........

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