Naomi Osaka stated Tuesday she nonetheless doesn’t really feel like herself on the court docket eight months into her comeback season following a maternity break, with the four-time Grand Slam champion puzzled at her lack of energy and accuracy.
The 26-year-old Japanese participant was crushed by Ashlyn Krueger within the second spherical of qualifying for the Cincinnati Open on Monday, the most recent setback in a patchy run of kind heading into the ultimate Grand Slam of the 12 months on the US Open from Aug. 26 to Sept. 8.
“My greatest challenge at the moment is not losses although, my greatest challenge is that I do not really feel like I am in my physique,” Osaka wrote on Instagram.
“It is a unusual feeling, lacking balls I should not miss, hitting balls softer than I bear in mind I used to. I attempt to inform myself, ‘It is nice you are doing nice. Simply get by this one and maintain pushing’, mentally it is actually draining by.
“Internally, I hear myself screaming, ‘What the hell is going on?!?!'”
Osaka returned to motion in January after a 15-month break throughout which she gave beginning to her daughter. Now ranked ninetieth on the earth, her greatest outcomes have been runs to the quarterfinals at Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch.
“I’ve performed a handful of matches this 12 months that I felt like I used to be myself and I do know this second might be only a small part from all the brand new transitions (clay, grass, clay, laborious), nevertheless the one feeling I may liken how I really feel proper now to is being post-partum,” Osaka stated.
“That scares me as a result of I have been enjoying tennis since I used to be three, the racket ought to really feel like an extension of my hand.”
Osaka’s subsequent occasion shall be at Flushing Meadows, the place she triumphed in 2018 and 2020, however she stated she didn’t perceive why the whole lot about her recreation felt “nearly model new once more.”
“This must be so simple as respiration to me, but it surely’s not,” she added.
“I genuinely didn’t give myself grace for that truth till simply now.”
Regardless of her struggles, Osaka stated she cherished placing within the work every day and “ultimately having the chance to get to the place you wish to be.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
