After competing in qualifying at a Hologic WTA Tour event for the first time since 2018 at the Cincinnati Open, former World No.1 Naomi Osaka got candid about where she feels her game is at nearly eight months into her comeback from maternity leave.
Osaka defeated Anna Blinkova in her opening qualifying match before falling to 20-year-old American Ashlyn Krueger in the final round, 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 to fall short of reaching the main draw at the WTA 1000 event. Osaka led 3-1 in the final set before losing the last five games.
The four-time Grand Slam champion is 18-15 in 2024 thus far and is ranked No.90 in the PIF WTA Rankings; she to the Top 100 at the end of July after starting her comeback in January ranked south of No.800 in the world. With a resume such as hers, Osaka has admitted to lofty goals in her career's second chapter -- but the trajectory towards achieving them has been anything but a straight line.
“My biggest issue currently isn’t losses though, my biggest issue is that I don’t feel like I’m in my body,” Osaka wrote Tuesday. “It’s a strange feeling, missing balls I shouldn’t miss, hitting balls softer than I remember I used to. I try to tell myself, ‘It’s fine you’re doing great. Just get through this one and keep pushing,’ mentally it's really draining through.
"Internally, I hear myself screaming, '[W]hat the hell is happening?!?!'"
Osaka, who gave birth to daughter Shai last July, says she's played "a handful of matches this year where [she] felt like [herself], but likened the feeling of uncertainty and inconsistency from match-to-match to being newly "postpartum" -- a candid point of view she has expressed more than once in her comeback season thus far.
“That scares [me] because I’ve been playing tennis since I was 3, the tennis racquet should feel like an extension of my hand," Osaka wrote.
“I don’t understand why everything has to feel almost brand new again. This should be as simple as breathing to me but it’s not and I genuinely did not give myself grace for that fact until just now.”
But despite the ups and downs, Osaka is keeping things in perspective, and ended her post on an optimistic note as she looks ahead to the US Open, a tournament that she's won twice.
“During this time, I’ve wondered what do I want out of this whole experience and I realized something,” Osaka wrote. “I love the process (though the process doesn’t love me sometimes haha), putting in work everyday and eventually having the opportunity to get to where you want to be.
"I know life isn’t guaranteed so I want to do the best that I can with the time that I have; I want to teach my daughter that she can achieve so many things with hard work and perseverance. I want her to aim for the stars and never think her dreams are too big.
"Nothing in life is promised but I realized that I can promise myself to work as hard as I can and give it my best shot 'til the very end."
