Naomi Osaka’s Australian Open and the rediscovery of a tennis superpower

MELBOURNE, Australia — For Naomi Osaka, this trip to the other side of the world is starting to become a rollercoaster ride for the ages.

The new year had started so right, with a run to the final in Auckland, New Zealand. But then, one 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 arrived in Los Angeles. The flames came within a few blocks of her home. She called a friend and asked her to pick up her daughter’s birth certificate.

On Monday night in Melbourne, back at her favorite Grand Slam, she produced a close, hard-fought victory 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 in the end.

Then came Wednesday afternoon against Karolina Muchova, a microcosm of the whole journey, and another sweet finish.

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 becoming a mother in summer 2023. This means she will play her first third-round match at a Grand Slam since the 2022 Australian Open.

Muchova, seed no. 20 in Melbourne, is a rising and gifted star who rose when Osaka was on the sidelines. She has the kind of all-court game that has become increasingly important at the top of women’s tennis. Osaka, with her power baseline attack, had not been able to solve it. At the US Open in August, Muchova sliced ​​Osaka on 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 seems to have plenty going for her a year and a half after the birth of her daughter, Shai. A new and skilled coach sits at the farm in Patrick Moratoglou. A fresh dose of confidence from her first appearance in a final in nearly two years, Monday’s win over Garcia. The fist pumps and punches on the left thigh between the points have fresh power. She has shown glimpses of her former 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.

“Every match she’s getting 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 changed.”

---

On day four of the first major of 2025, Osaka struggled to find answers to Muchova’s all-court attacks 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.

As the set ended, Osaka told herself to believe. In her prime, she had a distinct superpower. She played her best tennis at the most crucial time. She always seemed to come up with a huge serve down the T, a blistering forehand within inches of the baseline or a backhand screaming down the sideline when she needed them most.

That has been mostly missing during the 13 months of this comeback. For stretches, she has looked like she can hang with the best players in 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 focus during matches. She is not a confrontational person, she said, but her job is to fight other people, like a boxer, but without punches.

“It takes a lot of energy for me to know that I’m going to fight somebody,” she said.

“For me, that is what is my focus. Obviously, once it’s there, I say come so much and I shout. It’s almost like I’m a different person. Until it gets to that point, I’ll give it some thought.

The fires have only made focus 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.

By Wednesday afternoon, long enough, she was able to clear her mind and regain the essential superpower. She knew the result was ugly, but she told herself she had only been a few points away from making it close.

“I said to myself, ‘Okay, you’re kind of on your way out, but you’re going to try to get 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.”

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 as she found the kind of groove on her first serve that lifts any player’s spirits.

The power kept Muchova at the back of the court, unable to float forward and poke point-ending volleys, as she does better than anyone in the game. Here was Osaka, the old bully, sending her opponent leaping every which way, reaching for serves, overmatched and unable to catch her breath.

To the third set they went. Now it was Muchova’s turn to try and raise her game to Osaka’s level, or maybe a click higher. She couldn’t.

Osaka earned the decisive break points in the fifth game with a one-two punch from the title-winning years: a ripped cross-court forehand, then a backhand pass down the line. At the deciding point, she produced a deep backhand that Muchova could only block back wide.

Four games later, Osaka once again 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 fortune — onto the baseline. Muchova tried an overhead lob that went wide and Osaka jumped for 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’s also not going to hang around if the results aren’t the result she said earlier in her comeback. 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 the tour, but at the point in 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 I can be.”

Last year, Osaka’s goal was to climb back into the top 20, or at least the top 32, so she would be seeded for the Grand Slams and not have to face the top players in the early rounds. She finished last year as no. 58, well below both goals, and she had to cut her season short after withdrawing from the China Open when she was tied at 1-1 against Coco Gauff.

She started this season strongly, and could have seen 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 layoff. She was no better than she was here a year ago.

Muchova is as talented as anyone, capable of beating any top player on any given day. There would have been no shame in losing to her after a string of terrible draws at Grand Slams, including a surging Emma Navarro at Wimbledon and Iga Swiatek at the French Open.

But there’s the old Bill Parcells line that pretty much every athlete growing up in America is familiar with. According to the former New York Giants coach, “you are what your record says you are.”

She has been almost invincible since the start of the season. That’s what her record says she is.

(Top photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Associated Press)