Andy Murray says players should be prepared for heckling after Naomi Osaka incident

Andy Murray says young athletes must be prepared to deal with heckling after Naomi Osaka was reduced to tears during her third-round match at Indian Wells last week. 

Early on during Osaka’s tie with Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova, a heckler shouted “Naomi, you suck” at the four-time Grand Slam winner. 

The Japanese star stopped playing momentarily to speak to the umpire and was reduced to tears soon after. 

Osaka subsequently lost the match 6-0 6-4, but requested to speak to the crowd at the end, before her opponent took to the microphone. 

“Hi. I just wanted to say thank you. Yeah I feel like I’ve cried enough on camera but I just wanted to say,” she said as she cut herself off to wipe her tears away,” she said.

“To be honest, I’ve gotten heckled before, like it didn’t really bother me. But heckled here [Indian Wells], I’ve watched a video of Venus and Serena get heckled here and if you’ve never watched it, you should watch it.”

“And I don’t know why but it went into my head and it got replayed a lot. I’m trying not to cry. But I just wanted to say thank you and congratulations [to Kudermetova]. Yeah, just thank you.”

Murray has now offered his thoughts on the situation and admitted that heckling should not be allowed but that athletes must be prepared for it. 

“It’s a difficult one. I’ve often thought watching certain sports, I wouldn’t say I’ve often seen it loads in tennis, but if I watch a football or a soccer match and a player’s going to take a throw-in or a corner kick and the crowd are just hurling insults at those individuals,” the former British number one stressed. 

“I always think, how is that allowed? Like, you can’t do that. Like, you can’t do that. You know, if you’re doing that to someone when you’re