Naomi Osaka is getting real.
The four-time Grand Slam singles champion penned a candid letter to fans in the aftermath of a loss at the Cincinnati Open this week, where she detailed the highs and lows that she's experienced in the eight months since returning to tennis from maternity leave.
Osaka is expected to return to the US Open for the first time since 2022, having missed the tournament as a competitor last year after giving birth to her first child, daughter Shai, in July. But Osaka was on-hand in Queens to participate in a summit on athletes' mental health, where she said one of her chief hopes for her comeback was to be more "grateful" for the opportunities she's been given, and to be kinder to herself.
She's been preaching the mantra for much of the year, beginning with her return at the Brisbane International in January. But, when your resume includes 25 weeks at world No. 1 and four Grand Slam singles titles, including two at the US Open, you have high expectations of success. Though she's beaten four Top 20 players this season, and had match point against world No. 1 and eventual champion Iga Swiatek in the second round of Roland Garros before losing in three sets, and returned to the Top 100 in the WTA rankings, Osaka has yet to fully return to those dizzying highs she once achieved.
She lost in qualifying at the Cincinnati Open, the first time she played qualifying since February of 2018, and has reached just two quarterfinals in the 15 tournaments she's played this year—already the most events she's played in a single season since prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Osaka has been upfront about the things she desires to achieve in her career's "second chapter"—"I think it's better to have big dreams," she said shortly before returning—but after losing to 20-year-old American Ashlyn Krueger in the Queen City, Osaka opened up.
“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 likened the ups-and-downs to what it was like to be newly "postpartum" last year, an experience she's detailed more than once in her comeback thus far, despite having "a handful of matches this year where [she] felt like [herself]."
“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 continued. “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 the 26-year-old nonetheless signed off on an optimistic note as she looks ahead to a much-anticipated return to New York.
“During this time, I’ve wondered what do I want out of this whole experience and I realized something,” she concluded. “I love the process (though the process doesn’t love me sometimes haha), putting in work every day 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."
