When she was winning Grand Slam titles, Osaka would play her best shots in her worst moments. That had left her — until now.
MELBOURNE, Australia — For Naomi Osaka, this journey to the other side of the world is starting to become a rollercoaster ride for the ages.
The new year had all started so right, with a run to the final in Auckland, New Zealand. But then, a set up and with her first tournament title since becoming a mother in sight, she had to pull out against Clara Tauson with an injury.
The scans were “not great” in her words, a suboptimal development just a few days before the start of the Australian Open.
A few days later, the fires in Los Angeles arrived. The flames came within a few blocks of her home. She called a friend and asked her to collect her daughter’s birth certificate.
Monday night in Melbourne, back at her favorite Grand Slam, brought a tight, hard-fought win over Caroline Garcia of France, who had knocked her out in the first round here last year. Osaka had been up, then down, then somehow up at the end.
Then came Wednesday afternoon against Karolina Muchova, a microcosm of the whole journey, and another sweet ending.
Just when Osaka’s second or perhaps third tennis act looked set to take another frustrating and all-too familiar turn, she stormed back to beat Muchova, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3 in her biggest win since she became a mother in the summer of 2023. It means she will play her first third-round match at a Grand Slam since the 2022 Australian Open.
Muchova, the No. 20 seed in Melbourne, is an ascendant and gifted star who rose when Osaka was on the sidelines. She has the kind of all-court game that has become increasingly vital at the top of women’s tennis. Osaka, with her power baseline attack, hadn’t been able to solve it. At the U.S. Open in August, Muchova sliced and volleyed Osaka onto the next flight home from New York.
“She crushed me when I had my best outfit ever,” Osaka said on court. “She’s one of the best players out there.”
Osaka appears to have plenty going for her a year and a half on from giving birth to her daughter, Shai. A new and accomplished coach sitting courtside, in Patrick Moratoglou. A new dose of confidence from her first appearance in a final in nearly two years, and then Monday’s win over Garcia. The fist pumps and slaps of the left thigh between points have fresh vigour. She has shown flashes of her past self as a four-time Grand Slam champion in flickering moments, but now she has the luminous quality of a player honed for the present and for what is to come.
“With every match, she’s better,” Muchova said of Osaka.
“She’s played great matches here in Australia. I played even better at the start. I didn’t let her play the game. Then it switched.”
On day four of the first major of 2025, Osaka struggled to find answers for Muchova’s all-court attack from the start. She was down 5-0 after about 20 minutes, despite getting her chances to break Muchova’s serve in a couple of games. The set was gone after half an hour.
When the set ended, Osaka told herself to believe. In her best years, she had a distinct superpower. She played her best tennis at the most crucial moment. She always seemed to come up with a huge serve down the T, a torrid forehand within inches of the baseline or a backhand screeching down the sideline when she needed them most.
That has mostly been missing during the 13 months of this comeback. For stretches she has seemed like she can hang with the best players of this new, post-Serena Williams era. Then the big moment comes, and she can’t.
Osaka said after her first match that she has struggled with losing her focus during matches. She is not a confrontational person, she said, but her job is to fight other people, like a boxer but without the punching.
“It takes a lot of energy for me to know that I’m going to go fight against somebody,” she said.
“For me, that’s what my focus is. Obviously once it’s there, like, I say c’mon a lot and I’m yelling. It’s almost like I’m a different person. Up until it gets to that point, I overthink a little bit.
The fires have only made focusing more challenging.
“I’m not there, so I don’t know how bad it is or how bad it’s going to get,” she said.
For long enough on Wednesday afternoon, she was able to clear her mind and rediscover that essential superpower. She knew the score was ugly but she told herself she’d been just a few points away from making it close.
“I told myself, ‘Okay, you’re kind of on your way out, but you’re going to try to put your foot in the door,’” she said.
“I told myself to just swing, because that’s my game. I can’t be hesitant and allow her to push me around the court. I also tried to think that way with my serve, as well.”
Osaka got her teeth into the match early in the second set, lacing a series of deep, down-the-line backhands that sent Muchova sideways and backwards while finding the kind of groove on her first serve that sends every player’s spirits rising.
Naomi Osaka roared again and again on Wednesday in Melbourne. (Hannah Peters / Getty Images)
The power kept Muchova in the back of the court, unable to float forward and stick point-ending volleys as she does better than anyone in the game. Here was Osaka, the bully of old, sending her opponent scrambling every which way, stretching for serves, overmatched and unable to breathe.
Onto the third set they went. Now it was Muchova’s turn to try to lift her game to Osaka’s level, or maybe a click higher. She couldn’t.
Osaka got the decisive break points in the fifth game with a one-two punch from the title-winning years: a ripped cross-court forehand and then a backhand pass down the line. On the crucial point, she produced a deep backhand that Muchova could only block back wide.
Four games later, Osaka once more bullied her way to three match points. Muchova blasted away return winners to save two of them, but on the third Osaka dug the ball out with a looping lob that floated — perhaps with a little bit of fortune — onto the baseline. Muchova tried an over-her-head lob that went wide and Osaka bounced with joy.
The win gave her just what she was looking for. She has said she wants to play more this year than she did in 2024, but she also isn’t going to hang around if, as she put it earlier in her comeback, the results aren’t resulting. Belinda Bencic, another player returning to the WTA Tour after giving birth, is next.
“I have a lot of respect for all the players on tour, but the point of my life that I’m at right now, if I’m not above a certain ranking, I don’t see myself playing for a while,” she told reporters during the ASB Classic.
“I’d rather spend time with my daughter if I’m not where I think I should be and where I feel like I can be.”
Last year Osaka’s goal was to climb back into the top 20, or at the very least, the top 32, so she would be seeded at Grand Slams and not have to face the top players in the early rounds. She finished last year at No. 58, well below both goals, and she had to cut short her season after retiring from the China Open when locked at 1-1 against Coco Gauff.
She started this season strong, and could have looked at her time in the Australian summer as progress even if she had lost to Muchova again. Osaka was better than Garcia, who was playing her first match after a three-month mental health break. She wasn’t better than her here a year ago.
Muchova is as talented as anyone, able to beat any top player on any given day. There would have been no shame in losing to her after a run of horrible draws at Grand Slams, including a rising Emma Navarro at Wimbledon and Iga Swiatek at the French Open.
But there is the old Bill Parcells line that basically every athlete who grows up in America is well familiar with. According to the former New York Giants coach, “you are what your record says you are.”
She’s been nearly unbeatable since the start of the season. That’s what her record says she is.
(Top photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / Associated Press)
