"She was hating," Osaka explained in press, playing with a zipper on the sleeve of her windbreaker. "What would her children think? You're just gonna come on the internet and boo me for no reason? I didn't do anything to you!"
As plenty of players can attest, comments can get far more threatening and frightening than Dianne's, and are often motivated by gambling, racism, misogyny or combinations thereof.
In Dianne's case, though, Osaka was quick to empathize with her as a human, understanding that mean messages are largely enabled by the nature of the internet. You don't have to be cordial to someone on another continent.
"People like this, if they see you in person, I wonder what they would do, you know?" Osaka said. "The internet is so—you don't feel a human connection. So I just think it's interesting."
To be clear, it wasn't all dunking on Diannes on Osaka's Twitter account on Monday. Her next tweet was a heartfelt post about her father being in her player's box for the match.
