MELBOURNE, Australia — A seriously cold December afternoon in midtown Manhattan, in the lobby of a hotel off Central Park.
A 23-year-old woman looks up from a club chair near an elevator. She’s wearing a baseball cap, diddling around a bit on her phone.
“Hey,” she says.
Take another look. Oh, right, that’s Emma Navarro: U.S. Open semifinalist and a top-10 women’s player after just one full season of top-tier tournaments. She’s chilling ahead of a packed evening of photo ops, press gaggles, and an appearance at the New York Knicks NBA basketball game with a few other tennis players you might have heard of — Carlos Alcaraz, Ben Shelton and Jessica Pegula.
It might be fun. Then again, hanging out in this comfy chair, anonymously watching the bustle of her native city pass by is pretty cool too. There are many reasons why Navarro, who plays Ons Jabeur in the third round of the Australian Open Saturday, pursued tennis. Being a famous person was not one of them.
“The exact opposite,” she said the other day, after a second-round win in Melbourne over Wang Xiyu of China, her second consecutive three-set battle with the outcome up in the air until the final point.
“It’s something that I work really hard at managing and feeling comfortable with being in the spotlight….
