Naomi Osaka Responds to the "Demographic" Criticizing Her 2026 Australian Open Outfit

On January 22, Naomi Osaka returned to the 2026 Australian Open for her second-round match, having won her first game in a conversation-starting "jellyfish" look created by Robert Wun and Nike two days earlier. She walked onto the court wearing the same tennis dress—and, to no surprise, the internet had opinions.

Osaka re-stacked her ruffled, tie-dye dress on top of the skirt-over-pants trend—pleated pants beneath a billowing mini skirt—but traded the original veiled, wide-brimmed hat for a zip-up track jacket in the same blue and green print. (Some fans in the crowd adorably wore recreations of the hat.) Her scrunchie and visor continued the sea creature-inspired color story. Osaka also opted out of carrying the bold umbrella onto center court, though it was a signature motif in Robert Wun's Fall 2024 Couture collection.

According to a pre-match interview with Vogue, she and longtime collaborator Marty Herper "were both instantly drawn to [Robert Wun's] shapes, his textures, the way his work moves," which "lived in the same world we were imagining." The "exoskeletal" theme stemmed from a recent bedtime story she read to her two-year-old daughter, Shai.

“There was an image of a jellyfish, and when I showed it to her she got so excited,” Osaka said.

While so many people were excited about Osaka's creative approach to her on-court outfits (and to see Wun get this global spotlight), there were also naysayers in the comments of Vogue's post as well as on other parts of the Internet. After 24 hours of straight criticism, the tennis champion felt compelled to respond publicly.

"There’s a demographic that’s been talking about 'traditional' tennis outfits and calling me classless for what I wear," she wrote on Instagram Threads. "To be honest I see it for what it is. I don’t do this for them though, they will never get it and I don’t want them to. I do this for the people that are like me."

Fashion girls immediately applauded her response, and begged her in the comments to keep the serves coming. Some also referenced the way critics historically policed Venus and Serena Williams' outfits, to the point of banning the latter's skintight "catsuit" at the 2018 French Open. Tennis legend Billie Jean King's statement to that incident still applies today: "The policing of women's bodies must end. Criticizing what [Serena] wears to work is where the true disrespect lies."

In Osaka's Vogue interview, she shared: "When I look back at the players who came before me, I think about how those moments—those looks—have become memories that live forever... So much of the time, other people get to write our stories for us. This felt like a moment where I could write a little bit of my own.”