Naomi Osaka: Why Australian Open absence could raise significant questions for Grand Slam champion

“I'm taking it in sections,” explained Naomi Osaka after winning the fourth Grand Slam title of her career at the 2021 Australian Open.

“Right now, I'm trying to go for five. After five I would think about maybe dividing the 10, so maybe seven or eight. I like to take things not big picture. For me, I like to live in the moment.”

At that moment, aged 23, it seemed almost certain Osaka would win several more majors over her career.

“Everything is pointing towards her winning at least 10,” said Eurosport’s Mats Wilander after watching Osaka dispatch Jennifer Brady in straight sets in the final.

Fast forward two years and it’s now not clear when Osaka will compete in another Grand Slam, let alone contend for a fifth title.

It has been reported that Osaka is unlikely to play the 2023 Australian Open.

That is and isn’t a surprise.

The former world No. 1 has only played one game of tennis since losing in the first round of the US Open, where she is also a two-time Grand Slam champion. The last time she was on court in Tokyo in September she withdrew ahead of her match against Beatriz Haddad Maia due to illness. Since then she has released a children’s book called ‘The Way Champs Play’, has been in Europe as her boyfriend Cordae has toured, and has spoken on ‘The Late Show’ about feeling "ashamed' for taking a break from tennis in 2021 to manage her mental health.

There have been no social media tennis posts and Osaka has not entered any warm-up events ahead of the Australian Open.

With just 11 days to go until the Grand Slam starts on January 16 all signs point towards Osaka not returning to Melbourne.

Which is a surprise because Osaka, 25, had appeared to be trending in a positive direction towards the back of 2023.

In Tokyo she said the year had been “more down than up” but “overall I'm pretty happy with where I am now." And when she appeared on ‘The Late Show’ in December she said she still had an “itch” for tennis.

“For me, I feel like I'm a very curious person, so I've really been grateful to have been given all these avenues to explore, so I'm definitely looking forward to doing a lot of stuff, but I am a tennis player, so, if I don't play tennis for too long, I get an itch.”

While the current uncertainty around Osaka is new, her tennis career since her WTA main-draw debut in 2014 has been somewhat atypical.

Even when she was playing regularly she did not have the consistency that might be expected of a four-time Grand Slam champion. In 2021 Wilander described Osaka as the “best hard-court player we have had in the women’s game since Serena Williams was at her best”. Yet her Grand Slam record is so unusual: 23 appearances, four victories, not a single other second-week appearance. Even away from majors she has never been a consistently high-level performer every week on tour. She was world No. 1 but her only big non-Grand Slam tournament wins were Indian Wells in 2018 and the China Open in 2019. In some ways the biggest oddity last year with Osaka was that she didn’t win a Grand Slam title, which she did for four years straight from 2018 to 2021.

But Osaka’s potential Australian Open absence does raise bigger questions about the future; most significantly when will she return to the tour? Is there a small chance that this is it for the former world No. 1?

To hear Osaka say she still has the “itch” for tennis suggests she still wants more. But having seen how much it takes to get to No. 1 and win Grand Slam titles, does she want to get back to that level? And if she doesn’t would she be content with a more minor role on tour?

Now down at No. 42 in the world rankings, Osaka will fall much further if she doesn’t return in the next few months. She made the third round of the Australian Open last year so looks set to lose those ranking points, but the big one on the horizon is the Miami Open. Osaka had her best tournament of 2022 in Miami as she reached the final for the loss of just one set. There was even hope that the final would be the start of a blossoming rivalry against Iga Swiatek. That has clearly not materialised and Osaka could fall outside the top 100 for the first time since 2016 if she doesn’t follow up with another good run in Miami in March.

The last few years have clearly been difficult for Osaka for a number of reasons. She withdrew from the 2021 French Open due to mental health issues and then had the Olympics in her home country of Japan, where she was a torchbearer and said afterwards she struggled to deal with the pressure around the event. At times she appears to have been focusing more on off-court ventures, such as launching her own sports management agency, which has led to questions over whether she still has the passion and commitment for tennis.

“Osaka has too many things outside of tennis, it’s complicated for her,” former Wimbledon champion Marion Bartoli said on Match Points in December.

There seems little doubt that the WTA Tour is a poorer place without Osaka. She was the world’s highest-paid female athlete in 2022 and remains one of the star names in the sport who will attract big crowds whenever she plays. The idea of her getting back to top form and challenging Swiatek at Grand Slams is an exciting one, but how realistic is it?

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Stream the 2023 Australian Open live on discovery+ and eurosport.co.uk.