Japanese professional tennis player Naomi Osaka drew attention during a press conference at the US Open 2025 when she moved an Evian water bottle out of sight- a gesture reminiscent of Portuguese football legend Cristiano Ronaldo’s viral moment at a Euro 2020 press conference.
While the reason behind Naomi Osaka’s action remains unclear, the top-seeded tennis player, who reached the US Open 2025 quarter-finals in New York after a strong run, continued with the press conference without talking about the gesture.
A video of the moment was uploaded to social media and quickly went viral, sparking reactions from people
What happened?
The controversial incident occurred early Wednesday morning as Osaka fielded questions at a press conference ahead of her semi-final match against Karolina Muchova.
While a journalist asked a question, the four-time Grand Slam winner grabbed an Evian water bottle and removed it from the table.
Evian is one of the US Open’s main sponsors, and its bottles have been prominently displayed throughout the tournament.
Earlier, Ronaldo did the same in a press conference during Euro 2020, removing two Coca-Cola bottles before holding up a bottle of water and saying in Portuguese: “Water!” Reacting to that, Coca-Cola had said, “Players are offered water, alongside Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, on arrival at our press conferences.”
Here’s how netizens reacted
One wrote, “Carlos fights for Evian, Naomi fights against Evian, Evian gets more publicity than it pays for lol”
Another wrote, “It brought even more attention to Evian.”
A third wrote, “Cringe. This isn’t a ‘No Coca Cola’ moment. Its just water.”
“I’m surprised she won’t get fined for this considering Evian lay to be advertised here at PC,” a fourth wrote.”
What Osaka said
During the press conference, Osaka said, as quoted by express.co.uk, “I think, for me, the main thing I want to take away from this tournament is just smiling and having fun.”
“I know in my first round I was too nervous to smile, and my match against Kasatkina was just really not smiley at all. Going into this match [against Gauff], I just wanted to be grateful. Yeah, I mean, she’s one of the best players in the world.
“For me, honestly, I have the most fun when I play against the best players. I love when they hit amazing shots or they hit aces, because you know, that’s how they won the tournaments that they won. I always see it as a challenge. Yeah, I like challenges.”
She also commented on the Taylor Townsend and Jelena Ostapenko situation at US Open. Osaka said, “It’s one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority White sport.”
“I think it’s ill timing and the worst person you could have ever said it to. And I don’t know if Ostapenko knows the history of it in America.”
