Japan's Naomi Osaka says she is 'at peace' with herself ahead of first match since Australian Open exit
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Updated 10/03/2022 at 14:10 GMT
Japan's Four-time Grand Slam champion, Naomi Osaka said she was ‘at peace’ with herself going into Indian Wells, her first match since a third-round exit from the Australian Open. The 24-year-old endured a tumultuous 2021 season, with early exits from the French Open and the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Naomi Osaka of Japan watches the action during the Eisenhower Cup, a Tie Break Tens event at the 2022 BNP Paribas Open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on March 8, 2022 in Indian Wells, California
Image credit: Getty Images
Naomi Osaka will return to Indian Wells with renewed peace and focus after a difficult 2021 season and an early at the Australian Open.
The four-time Grand Slam champion, who broke into the top ten of the WTA rankings with her first career title at Indian Wells in 2018, will face America’s Sloane Stephens in a first-round match on the prestigious hardcourts of the California desert.
The 24-year-old is set to take to the court for the first time since January, where she lost in the third round of the Australian Open to America’s Amanda Anisimova, a loss Osaka says helped reframe her thinking.
“Honestly, I feel like I’m at peace with myself, which I think is a great feeling to have as a person,” Osaka said on Wednesday.
Honestly, I feel like I’m at peace with myself, which I think is a great feeling to have as a person.
“For me, the biggest focus this year is, of course, I want to do well in every tournament,” she added.
“But I think just knowing that I tried as hard as I could and I enjoyed myself … I felt the difference in Australia.
“I actually left the court thinking, ‘You know what, I did my best.’ And I had match points. That was pretty good.”
After a quiet 2021 campaign, including an absence for mental health reasons, Osaka dropped out of the top 80 in the WTA rankings as she was defending title-winning points from the previous year.
For the first time since 2018, Osaka missed out on a top ten spot in the rankings in October last year following a third-round exit from the 2021 US Open.
The Japanese player withdrew from last year’s French Open and made an early exit from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
She withdrew from Wimbledon in 2021 to take “personal time with friends and family”, revealing that she has been dealing with anxiety and depression since her first Grand Slam win at the 2018 US Open.
“I’ve learned to enjoy my time more,” she said. “This moment in my life, playing tennis, I’ve trained my entire life for it. But when I’m 70, it will probably be a small chapter for me. So I have to enjoy it while I still can.
“I’m just trying to appreciate every tournament.”
Osaka will take to the court this evening for her first appearance at the tournament in three years.
Both Osaka and Stevens will be optimistic about progressing in a field missing world No. 1, Ashleigh Barty and No. 2 Barbora Krejcikova.
Barty said she has not yet fully recovered from her win at the Australian Open and Krejcikova withdrew with an elbow injury.
The tournament’s top seed, Belarus’ Aryna Sabalenka, who has been prevented from playing under her national flag, has pledged to wear the blue and yellow ribbon of Ukraine during her first match.
The men’s side of the draw is free of Novak Djokovic, who will not be allowed to compete after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definitively ruled that he cannot enter the United States while he remains unvaccinated from Covid-19.
Rafael Nadal, along with world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev, is among the favourites for the men’s title with Djokovic absent.
The Spain player has had the perfect, 15-0 start to 2022, clinching three trophies including the Australian Open.
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