In a Loss, Naomi Osaka Gains Her Peace, at Last

After years of tear-stained defeats, the four-time champion said she'd reached "enlightenment."

PARIS, France — One of the biggest topics I’ve tracked in covering Naomi Osaka, at least since she first reached the No. 1 ranking in 2019, is how she handles losses.

Once she felt as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, it was clear that each loss fell more heavily on Naomi than it would on others. She first abruptly left the podium tearfully in 2019, at Wimbledon. In 2021, she pulled out of the French Open after entering a standoff with the tournament about mandatory post-match press conferences, in which she called post-loss press conferences “kicking a person while they’re down.” A few months later at the 2021 U.S. Open, Osaka again ended a press conference tearfully.

Osaka, who was defending champion at that tournament, dropped out of the top 10 soon after the loss and hasn’t returned to that threshold yet. But she’s also become, recently, much more grounded as a person, and far less fragile in defeat, even if those defeats come earlier and more often than they once did.

Osaka was playing in the fourth round of the French Open for the first time on Monday night, in a high-profile night match against top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka. It’s the sort of match which could’ve meaningfully changed the trajectory of her season—and even her career—if she won it. Osaka played well, but couldn’t sustain an early lead and lost 7-5, 6-3.

Naomi Osaka under the lights (Photo by Mark Peterson / Corleve)

Not only was Osaka not tearful at the podium this time, she was downright proud.

“Honestly, I don’t really look at the result too much anymore,” she said when asked if she thought her clay season had been a success. “Like, I feel as long as I wake up every day and hit the ball and think I’m improving, that itself is a win. Obviously sometimes in the season, there’s dips: highs and lows. But I think getting the furthest that I got so far in Roland Garros should hopefully be a positive result for me.”

Later, Osaka was asked if she came off more “encouraged” or “daunted” after testing herself against the World No. 1.

“Presumably that’s where you want to be again, No. 1,” the reporter suggested.

Osaka laughed, and then apologized for the reaction.

“Sorry for laughing,” she said. “I kind of realize—I don’t know if you knew me before, but I would be very, very disappointed in myself after matches like these. But I kind of realized that it doesn’t matter at all.

“Like, I have played her multiple times, and I have, sadly to say, lost multiple times. But the only thing I can keep doing is keep trying my best. Maybe, hopefully, it will work out in my favor one day, but I can’t let myself be discouraged every time I lose to someone or win against someone. Because honestly, like, hitting a ball doesn’t really matter in, like, on earth, kind of.”

Having followed Osaka so closely for a decade now, and having written a whole dang book about her, I know just how much of her self-esteem and her self-worth she used to wrap up in wins and losses, and how painful that became for her. Given the stark black-and-white binary of tennis results, and their unpredictability, granting herself distance and peace from those harsh assessments can only be healthy. These projects she has off-court—particularly the efforts she’s putting into her increasingly intricate fashion statements—have given her a new leg, almost: she seems more stabilized than ever against the currents and the shifting terrains of a life of fame and competition.

“I feel like I say this every couple of months, but I think I reached an enlightenment, in a healthy way for me,” Osaka later said. “Because obviously I pour so much into tennis; like, if I lost this match when I was younger, I’d shut myself in my room or whatever. But now I feel like: obviously I love tennis, and I’m trying my best to do everything to be the best player I can, but I’m just—I don’t know. Like, it’s kind of like a clock-in, clock-out type of thing. I’m excited to go home and see my daughter. Honestly, that’s kind of the happiest moments of life for me.”

Naomi Osaka under the lights. (Photo by Mark Peterson / Corleve)

That Osaka could feel so far-from-fraught was particularly powerful on a night when many felt like so much was at stake for women’s tennis, which was granted a night session spot for the first time in three years here. Osaka and Sabalenka are two of the biggest stars in the sport and it would have been easy for the women to feel a responsibility to maximize their showing in a way that could “justify” the decision—even if a big reason they got picked, surely, was just how much the men’s draw has imploded.

Even I, as I watched the match, found myself willing it to go on longer, as if that would prove some sort of point—hollow though it would be.

But Osaka said she didn’t ratchet up the pressure on herself for that reason, either.

“Not really—I don’t really care,” she said. “I feel like there are so many different things for me to put pressure on myself. Like, that’s the last thing on my mind. Obviously you don’t want to be beaten 6-0, 6-0, but that’s anywhere on any court. If I was on Court 27, I wouldn’t want to be beaten that fast either. Shout-out to the tournament for trusting us. I hope it was entertaining for people.”

Thanks for reading Bounces! -Ben