Naomi Osaka turns French Open walk-ons into fashion statements

Naomi Osaka turned Court Simonne-Mathieu into a runway before she hit a ball, arriving for her second-round match against Donna Vekic in a metallic gold bomber jacket over a sequined gold dress, finished with an ivory train. She peeled off the outer layers before play and handed them to a ball kid, a small gesture that underscored the larger point: for Osaka, the entrance is part of the performance.

The first-round win that put Osaka in that position came on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, where she beat Laura Siegemund 6-3, 7-6 (3) on May 26. Osaka, ranked 16th in the world in the Olympics.com report, opened in a black corset and pleated skirt before revealing a glittering gold-sequined Nike dress she said was inspired by the Eiffel Tower at night. Osaka later said Grand Slam walk-ons are the only time she feels like an entertainer, a line that fits the way she has used major tournaments to merge tennis with a carefully staged personal brand.

That branding works because it reaches beyond the scoreline. Osaka has long been one of tennis’s most recognizable figures, and Paris gave her another platform to project an image that is as much about style and presence as it is about results. Roland Garros is one of the few stages where elite sport and high fashion already overlap, and Osaka has made that overlap part of her appeal, turning pre-match entrances into moments that travel well beyond the clay.

The reaction showed the sharp edges of that visibility. Siegemund criticized Osaka’s outfit and said she came to play tennis, not to put on a fashion show. Osaka, meanwhile, entered the Vekic match with a 2-0 head-to-head record, having beaten the Croatian at the 2016 Australian Open and again in Stuttgart in 2019. That edge mattered on court, but the walk-on mattered just as much in the wider economy of attention that now surrounds the sport’s biggest names.

Osaka has also said she was excited about the possibility of Serena Williams returning to tennis, another reminder that her public role reaches beyond one match or one tournament. In Paris, her wardrobe, her rankings, and her results all fed the same storyline: a star whose influence still stretches well past the baseline.