After Naomi Osaka completed her first win of a much-trailed comeback at the Brisbane International, the BBC’s opening words of their online report read “New mother.” Parenthood came before mention of the player and that may be especially appropriate in the case of the post-match comments that a new life status has brought. After her first outing in 15 months on the circuit, the Japanese tweeted: “Dear moms, everybody and every body is different. Don’t compare yourself to anyone, you’re beautiful and you’re loved.”
It’s been a long journey back to the tennis court for the four-time Grand Slam champion. Osaka’s first child was born in July last year and appears to have had a profound effect on how she looks through the prism of life. “I’m the type of person that can’t really think about myself. I make rash decisions and she’s helped me mature so much already. I’m a lot more comfortable with who I am and I’m just very thankful for every day,” she told BBC Sport.
There’s nothing new in tennis players becoming mothers and returning to the court full of vigor and vim to remake their mark. Like Caroline Wozniacki most recently, Osaka wants to show her daughter that anything is possible in life, that things are not bound in old motherhood tales of living only once as a free agent before birth. “I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family. I don’t think it’s fair,” Serena Williams famously said. Things are gradually shifting.
It is unquestionable that whatever the pain and strain of her ongoing depression, something that was fomented after that groundbreaking US Open win over her hero Serena Williams in 2018, Osaka has come back with new tools to cope. There’s been the trauma of a complicated birth with the best end result possible, a healthy daughter. The former world No.1 believes that her physical pain barrier is now at a higher threshold through natural forces. This added steel was not quite enough to see her get past Karolina Pliskova in a tight three-set battle on Wednesday, but the vital signs of her tennis skills look good too.
Naomi Osaka lost the momentum of her tennis career when she withdrew from the French Open in 2021 (and eventually Wimbledon) the day after being fined $15,000 and given a warning over absences from post-match press conferences. The pressure cooker then started to boil over as she mentioned her battles with anxiety, depression and the expectations of the media in a social media post. This wasn’t so much a press that built a star up to knock her down, but rather an athlete who wanted to shut the door on the protocol of probing traditional press duties. She claimed the media had little care for her mental health or others.
Her transparency at the most vulnerable moment of her sporting career certainly gained a lot of traction. Osaka’s temerity in fighting traditional ways of acquiescing to the expected duties of a player opened up a whole new debate about the symbiotic relationship between the media and athletes.
Osaka has spent the time away from the court taking back control of the narrative by creating her own sports agency Evolve with Stuart Duguid. “I’ve spent my career doing things my way, even when people told me that it wasn’t what was expected or traditional,” she told Sportico in an email. Nick Kyrgios, another very busy content creator off the court, was the company’s first client.
A month later, it was announced that the 26-year-old had set up a media production company alongside LeBron James called Hana Kuma. Its strapline was ‘disrupting the default’, which is exactly what Osaka continues to do. She was the first Japanese to win a major and the first Asian No. 1 so this venture about ’empowering’ and ‘culturally specific’ stories was another platform for her to voice and direct her story.
There is a famous Japanese saying that reads “parental feelings are stronger than what the child feels for parents.” Naomi Osaka version 2.0 has the foundation of a strong bond that can add extra energy to her game. She has even changed her way of looking at defeat through the eyes of her child. “I do feel different. I mean, of course I feel sad, but the sadness is me being like, ‘Aww, I wish I could have done better, because I know I’m spending so much time away from her (Shai), so I want it to be worth it somehow.” It’s so far so good for the latest circle of life.
