Naomi Osaka was so emotional after losing in the Wimbledon third round that she was unable to answer a question about motherhood. Osaka was a set up and in control against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova but she let what would have been a maiden fourth-round appearance slip through her fingers in a 6-3 4-6 4-6 defeat.
And the Japanese athlete, based out of California, took the loss hard. During a post-match press conference in which most of her answers were kept brief, Osaka was set off by a question about her experience of playing top-level tennis as a mother. The 27-year-old has a daughter, Shai, who celebrated her second birthday this week.
“I’m really sorry,” she said. “Can you ask me that… no, not again, but I can’t answer that right now. Maybe another time.”
Osaka has endured a tough time at Grand Slams of late, with her last outing at the French Open ending at the first-round stage against Paula Badosa. And she claims that Friday’s Wimbledon defeat has had a different impact on her emotionally.
“I mean, I think in Paris I was just very… like, when I sat here, I was very emotional,” she explained. “Now I don’t feel anything, so I guess I’d prefer to feel nothing than everything.
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“I think it’s because I actually thought I could play well, like, in general. I’m not saying I didn’t play well, but [I thought I could] make a deep run here. I wanted to do better than I did before. Also, I felt like I was trying so hard. I low-key busted a vein in my hand.
“I think if I look back on it, I can be happy with how I played. I think I started getting a lot more comfortable on grass. Clearly, I need to work on a couple of things.”
Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam winner and a former world No.1. But she has not been beyond the third round of a Slam since missing the entire 2023 season, and all of her major successes have come on the hard courts of Melbourne or Flushing Meadows.
While that means good times may be on the horizon for Osaka ahead of the US Open in August, it is still early to entirely switch focus after a painful result at the All England Club.
She said: “Obviously, I look forward to it [the hard-court swing]. I think last year I put a lot of stress on myself because I know I have a history of playing well there [in the USA], and then also the Asian swing. I am looking forward to it, but I don’t want to kind of psych myself out.”