Naomi Osaka to return for 2024 Australian Open

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka plans to return to tennis in time for the 2024 Australian Open.

In an interview with ESPN at the U.S. Open on Wednesday, Osaka replied “yes” when asked if she would be in Melbourne at the start of next year.

She said her break from the sport “really fueled a fire in me” during a mental health forum with swimming legend Michael Phelps at Flushing Meadows in New York.

“It’s definitely way more tournaments than I used to play,” said Osaka, who is a 25-year-old who was born in Japan and moved to the United States with her parents when she was three. 

She has won four Grand Slam singles titles with triumphs in the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021 and the U.S. Open in 2018 and 2020.

She gave birth to daughter Shai in July and hasn’t played since September 2022, when she made her last tournament appearance at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

Osaka revealed her issues with depression and anxiety when she withdrew from the French Open in 2021. She later took extended breaks from the game to protect her mental health.

Her latest time away “really raised my love for the sport and it made me realize I’m not going to play forever. I have to embrace the times. I’ve been playing tennis since I was three,” she said. “I don’t think I can predict what I’ll do – I never am able to do that – but it definitely made me appreciate a lot of things that I took for granted.”

Phelps discussed a “breaking point” nearly 10 years ago, “where I didn’t want to be alive.”

“I literally didn’t talk about anything I was going through with my own family for 10 years and then it just – I was a volcano that erupted,” Phelps said. “Instead of talking about it, I just let it build.”

(With input from agencies)