“I am learning a lot of lessons through motherhood” - Naomi Osaka opens up on motherhood’s impact on her as a player

Naomi Osaka recently spoke about how she tries to incorporate the lessons that motherhood has taught her into her game. The response came to a question that compared motherhood to a clay court player.

The Japanese and her partner, American rapper Cordae, welcomed their daughter Shai in July last year. However, due to her pregnancy and duties as a new mother, Osaka sat out the entire 2023 season and recently made her return to the court at the 2024 Brisbane International. Since then, she has been on a path to return to her former self.

During her pre-tournament press conference for Roland Garros, Osaka was asked how mothers are like clay courters as they have to be resilient, adaptive, and patient to which she responded that she found the question funny.

"Yeah umm that's a funny question," Osaka said.

She then replied by stating how a mother needs to have all of the aforementioned qualities and also said how some people have these qualities ingrained in them but that wasn't the case for her. The Japanese then said that she has learned a lot of lessons through motherhood and looks to incorporate them into her game.

"Yeah I do think like moms do have to be all of those things um and there's people that are naturally like that anyways, but for me, um yeah I am learning a lot of lessons through motherhood and I hope that I can remember to apply them on the tennis court."

Naomi Osaka has been slowly adjusting to the red dirt at the European clay swing where she kicked things off at the Open de Rouen but was eliminated in the opening round.

She then headed to the Madrid Open and made it to the second round. The 26-year-old saw a jump in her performance at the Italian Open where she reached the fourth round.

"It's kind of surreal" - Naomi Osaka gets emotional as she talks about Shai's first steps

Naomi Osaka

During the same press conference, Naomi Osaka expressed her happiness over Shai's first steps and said she would make Shai practice more once she was done with the French Open.

The Japanese was also amazed at how much her daughter had grown and the things she was now able to do.

"Yesterday she walked for the first time, so I was really happy about that and we're going to practice some more when I get back but yeah, it's really cool to have her here and just to see how much she's grown and how many things she's doing differently. It's kind of surreal," Osaka said.

Osaka will kick off her campaign in Paris against Lucia Bronzetti at court Phillipe-Chatrier on May 26.