News about Naomi Osaka

Coco Gauff is being praised for her sportsmanship after she walked off the court with an injured Naomi Osaka at the China Open. The fourth round match was set to go into a third set after Gauff won the second set 6-4 (Osaka won the first set 6-3), but the Japan-born player was forced to retire with a lower back injury. And Gauff was extremely classy towards her opponent as she gave her a hug and offered to carry her bag off the court.

Caroline Ellison, the ex-girlfriend of FTX ringleader Sam Bankman-Fried, wrote a Bridgerton style romance novel as she waited to be sentenced for her role in the $8 billion crypto fraud. Her mother, MIT professor Sara Fisher Ellison, revealed this in a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan. Most experts believe Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, won't spend a day in jail.

Town council officials in Ross, California, are considering banning or regulating pickleball courts at private residences. Ross could be one of the first Bay Area cities to require courts to be private despite pickleball's popularity.

Naomi Osaka reflected upon her shocking second-round loss at the US Open on Thursday night. The Japanese tennis star and two-time US Open champion fell to seeded Karolina Muchova on Arthur Ashe. It's Osaka's third-straight loss in the second round of a grand slam in the 2024 season after she missed the entirety of 2023 as she dealt with giving birth to her daughter. 

JAKE NISSE IN FLUSHING MEADOWS: Naomi Osaka's return to Arthur Ashe could have been much different.  Off the back of a dominant win over Jelena Ostapenko, Osaka's second round match vs. Karolina Muchova largely came down to several sliding doors moments. Much to the chagrin of the New York crowd, though, it was the Czech player who held her nerve with a 6-3, 7-6(5) win, as Osaka threw away a triple-set point to level the match and also spurned a 4-2 advantage in a subsequent tiebreak. 

Naomi Osaka has opened up on the difficulties she encountered in her time away from tennis after sharing a photo of herself on crutches and unable to walk just one year ago. Osaka was overcome with emotion after winning her first-round match against Jelena Ostapenko at the US Open on Tuesday, which marked her first victory over a top-10 ranked opponent for four years. The 26-year-old, a four-time Grand Slam champion, has endured a testing few years after winning the Australian Open in 2021; having followed up that triumph by taking a hiatus from the sport due to mental-health issues before spending the entirety of last season on maternity leave.

Naomi Osaka shed tears following her impressive first-round US Open win, and the four-time Slam winner revealed afterwards what got her so emotional. Osaka, who won the US Open in 2018 and 2020, looked every bit of an elite player on Tuesday as she easily dispatched world No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko, 6-3, 6-2. And the Japan-born player, who missed all of last season on maternity leave, was overcome with emotion after surging into the second round and earning her first top-10 win in four years.

Osaka - ranked No. 88 - showed up to Tuesday's game against No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko in a light green Nike top and skirt with frills, which were tied together with a rather large white bow. In warm-ups, Osaka wore a white jacket with a big green bow and a white tutu but took both pieces of clothing off before defeating her opponent.

Four years since her second US Open title - and days after she was granted a wild card to this year's tournament - it was fair to wonder what kind of level we would see from Naomi Osaka in the first round  against world No. 10 Jelena Ostapenko. The answer was resounding, as Osaka marked her return to New York from last year's maternity leave with an emphatic 6-3, 6-2 win. The match, which followed a Danielle Collins-Caroline Dolehide marathon beforehand on Louis Armstrong, lasted barely over an hour and served as a reminder of Osaka's brilliance - at least when she's purring with this much confidence.

MATTHEW LAMBERT AT FLUSHING MEADOWS: In recent years on the WTA Tour, it has seemed like winning a Grand Slam has been at least as much a curse as a blessing. Two poster girls for that theory face off on Tuesday, with 2021 US Open champion Emma Raducanu taking on 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin. Since her breakout year Kenin has reached only a single final and Raducanu has made none, with both admitting the pressure of backing up those major wins has at times been crippling. Kenin, now 25, was a teen prodigy and her win Down Under was far less out-of-the-blue than Raducanu's Fairytale of New York.

Two-time US Open champion Naomi Osaka has opened up on how working with a ballet coach has prevented her from more 'breakdowns' on court. The 26-year-old, who won here in 2018 and 2020, is back at Flushing Meadows as a wildcard after missing the whole of 2023 after giving birth to her daughter, Shai, last July. Osaka has won just two Grand Slam singles matches since the 2022 French Open but earlier this year she revealed that Simone Elliott has joined her team.

The duo wore Kobe Bryant jerseys in a fitting tribute to the NBA legend, but were unable to get past Taylor Fritz and Amanda Anisimova in their doubles match.

Naomi Osaka responded to a question on her TikTok account, shutting down a claim that she is pregnant. The four-time Grand Slam champion also said she 'wouldn't want many more children' due to her 'traumatic experience while giving birth the first time. Osaka became a mother last July, welcoming 1-year-old daughter Shai into the world with rapper Cordae.

American tennis fans were quick to criticize Chris Eubanks on Sunday after he suffered a humiliating first-round exit at the Olympics.  Benjamin Hassan secured a landmark victory at Roland Garros in Paris as he became the first Lebanon player to win a match in an Olympic tennis event, at the expense of Eubanks. Germany-born Hassan, ranked 170th in the world, won 6-4, 6-2 in just 53 minutes for one of the best victories of his career.

NATHAN SALT AT WIMBLEDON: The drama at Wimbledon continued apace on Wednesday as hopes of Emma Raducanu making a deep run were strengthened following a demolition on Court No 1. The busy schedule struggled to get going amid the drizzly conditions in west London but once play did get underway it ignited with fans thrilled on the show courts and the outside courts.  Naomi Osaka's grass-court frustrations continued, while it was an all-Italian blockbuster on Centre Court between world No 1 Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini.  Mail Sport's NATHAN SALT was on hand to recap some of the things you may have missed from the third day of the championships.

NATHAN SALT ON CENTRE COURT: Naomi Osaka found herself holding back tears as she opened up on the crippling self-doubt which set in in her 59-minute second round defeat to Emma Navarro at Wimbledon. Having beaten Diane Parry in the first round, Osaka was in good spirits and hopeful of a career-best run in SW19, which continues to be the third round after her 6-4, 6-1 defeat on Centre Court today. 'Honestly, I feel like even though in the beginning it was kind of like we were trading games, I don't know why, I didn't feel fully confident in myself,' Osaka said afterwards. 

Rain has stopped play at Wimbledon and dampened the spirits of punters at Henley Royal Regatta as the Met Office warns voters will face thundery downpours when they head to the polls on Thursday. Strong winds and wet weather have already hit parts of the country on Wednesday, forcing Regatta guests and Wimbledon fans to take umbrellas and raincoats to both events. Play has been delayed by more than two hours on some courts at SW19, as organisers hope to get matches underway this afternoon. But spectators are bracing themselves for more rain throughout the day, despite temperatures reaching a warm high of 19C. Torrential downpours are also forecast for much of the UK on election day as unsettled conditions bring 'a rush of showers with a heavy risk of thunder'. The weather is likely to play a huge part in people's voting behaviour. According to UK Election Statistics, for every centimetre of rainfall on polling day, turnout reduces by 0.95 percentage points.

American tennis player Emma Navarro has yet to make waves in the tennis world but has a net worth which would make any of the men's or women's top seeds envious. The 23-year-old American ace made history this week as she reached the second round of Wimbledon for the first time in her career. 

Emma, pictured with  Niculina, right, has discovered her grandmother keeps up with her latest match results by talking to her local priest in Bucharest. The widow, who lives in a flat in a Communist-era block on the edge of the city, is called 'Mamiya', an affectionate Romanian term for Granny, by the tennis star.

Tennis fans are facing the prospect of spending £5 on water whilst watching their favourite stars in action at Wimbledon this year. For this summer's tournament at SW19 - which begins on July 1 - Evian is offering a scheme which sees punters pay £5 for a QR code which they can stick to their reusable bottles and use at water refill stations. Danone - which owns Evian, Volvic and Harrogate Spring Water - say they want to assess whether there is a demand for refills of cold water from the French Alps, rather than the club's mains-water fountains. It has become the first company to offer such a scheme and if successful it could be introduced to other large events, as well as coffee shops, pubs and even supermarkets. The move comes as large numbers of people continue to avoid drinking tap water and bulk-buy bottles of water at supermarkets, despite growing criticism of single-use plastics.

On Thursday, former world No.1 Ash Barty (pictured left in 2021, and right with husband Garry Kissick) was revealed to be making a stunning return to the court at the All England Club next month - and now the story has taken another, delightful turn.

Former grand slam champions Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki and Angelique Kerber have all been awarded wildcards for Wimbledon. Raducanu will return to the All England Club, where she made her breakthrough by reaching the fourth round in 2021, for the first time in two years following wrist and ankle surgery last year. The former US Open champion reached the semi-finals of the Rothesay Open in Nottingham last week in an encouraging start to her grass-court campaign.

MATTHEW LAMBERT AT ROLAND-GARROS: There is a lovely tennis club here on the banks of the Seine, and in the clubhouse one wall is completely covered by a picture of Iga Swiatek. It was taken, the barman said, a few weeks ago when she paid them a visit before the French Open. She is polish, not French, and only turned 23 on the day of her third-round win, but it feels like Swiatek is already part of the tennis fabric of Paris. The world No 1 is creating a dynasty here at Roland Garros. She won her third French open title in a row and fourth in five years with a 6-2, 6-1 dismissal of Italian first-time major finalist Jasmine Paolini.

Jasmine Paolini will be looking to cause a huge upset in today's women's French Open final against world No 1 and four-time major winner Iga Swiatek. At the time of writing, Paolini is a massive 8/1 outsider with Sky Bet to win her maiden major title. Three-time French Open champion Swiatek is an extremely short 1/20 to be crowned champion at Roland-Garros for a third year in a row.