The Inner Game

A study of a champion still struggling to feel like one.

- JEN CHANEY

THE SOUND OF A TENNIS BALL hitting a racquet or bouncing off a court’s surface over and over, forehand after forehand, is as fundamental to Naomi Osaka as her own heartbeat. In Naomi Osaka, the Netflix docuseries about perhaps the most successful tennis champion of her generation, director Garrett Bradley amplifies that metronomic rhythm. In scenes when the 23-year-old is playing the game and some when she isn’t, the sound is as relentless, urgent, and inescapable as the athlete’s high standards for herself. It is also reflective of Bradley’s immersive and intimate approach—one that extends beyond attempting to explain who Osaka is in order to make the audience feel how it feels to be her.