Naomi Osaka arrived at Wimbledon this year with modest expectations on grass and left it as one of the most dangerous floating names heading into the North American hard-court swing.
The four-time Grand Slam champion reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals for the first time in her career, a run built on a statement fourth-round win over world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, whom she beat 6-2, 7-6(2) on Centre Court. She became the first Japanese woman to reach the last eight at the All England Club since Ai Sugiyama in 2004, before falling to eventual semi-finalist Karolina Muchova.
The fortnight lifted Osaka to No. 13 in the WTA rankings — her highest position since early 2022 — and, more tellingly, restored the sense that she is again a genuine threat at the biggest events.
That she did it on grass, historically her weakest surface, only sharpens the story. Osaka had never previously advanced beyond the Wimbledon third round, and before this summer she had never beaten a top-10 player away from a hard court. Now the tour pivots to the surface where she built her name.
The hard courts she owns
All four of Osaka’s majors came on hard: the US Open in 2018 and 2020, the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. She spent 25 weeks as world No. 1 and remains, at 28, one of the sport’s biggest draws. Crucially, her 2025 comeback summer offered a live preview of what a healthy Osaka can do on North American concrete.
She reached the Canadian Open final in Montreal — saving a match point and beating three top-20 players en route — before losing to home wildcard Victoria Mboko, then ran to the US Open semi-finals, where she served for the match against Amanda Anisimova before being caught. That stretch carried her back into the top 20 for the first time in more than three years.
The trajectory since maternity leave has been steady rather than spectacular: a first post-comeback final at Auckland in early 2025, a WTA 125 title at Saint-Malo, and now a Wimbledon breakthrough anchored by a settled game. Her daughter, Shai, turned three during the Wimbledon fortnight.
The swing ahead
The 2026 National Bank Open, the WTA’s next 1000-level event, runs from Aug. 1-13, with the women’s draw staged in Toronto. Osaka is confirmed on the entry list and, as the tournament’s 2025 runner-up, arrives with both pedigree and a substantial points haul to defend — a subplot that adds ranking pressure as well as expectation. The swing then flows into Cincinnati and on to the US Open, the site of her maiden major and a tournament where she has twice lifted the trophy.
Reasons for measured optimism
This is a resurgence to take seriously, not to oversell. Osaka has not won a tour-level title since the 2021 Australian Open, and she has lost each of her last three finals — most recently retiring in the Bad Homburg final in June with a right foot problem, her first grass-court final. That she recovered to play seven matches across two weeks at Wimbledon strongly suggests the issue is behind her, but her durability across a compressed hard-court schedule will be worth monitoring.
The coaching picture, by contrast, looks stable. Osaka’s partnership with Tomasz Wiktorowski — the Polish coach who guided Iga Swiatek to multiple majors — has coincided with her return to form, and she has repeatedly credited his work on movement and pattern recognition for her new comfort on court. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had so much fun on the court,” she said at Wimbledon.
None of this makes Osaka a favorite in a field led by Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina and Swiatek. But a former No. 1 with four hard-court majors, a fresh top-13 ranking and visible momentum is exactly the kind of unseeded-danger draw the leading names will hope to avoid. On the surface she owns best, Osaka enters the North American swing as its most compelling dark horse.
