Naomi Osaka’s mental health journey made her tennis comeback even more remarkable

Calling Naomi Osaka’s return to professional a “comeback tour” is probably a disservice to what she’s actually doing. She’s not some ‘80s folk band reuniting for one last ride — she has catapulted herself right back into the elite levels of women’s tennis. She’s only 28, and has trended up steadily since her 2024 return. Can she get all the way back to the top?

It took a few years, but since Osaka returned to competition after several hiatuses in 2021 and 2022 and maternity leave in 2023, she’s beginning to approach her old level. Her ranking points are unlikely to get high enough to compete for the number one ranking again unless she starts traveling much more, but anyone who has watched tennis this year knows that Osaka is more than capable of winning the upcoming US Open. She’s still very much the dominant, overpowering force she was when she tore up women’s tennis between 2018 and 2021.

Like many fans, I was truly introduced to Osaka during the 2018 US Open Final, when she defeated Serena Williams to win her first of four Grand Slams. But I remember that match not for the anointing of tennis’ next great player, but for the on-court meltdown between Serena and the chair umpire, which distracted completely from Osaka’s achievement. I felt horrible for her; a spectacular win without the associated flowers.

It is at this point in the article that I am contractually obligated to tell you that Osaka’s career since then was derailed by mental health struggles and maternity leave… but screw that! I’m not contractually obligated to say anything, and I don’t think Osaka’s career is marred, tainted, spotty, checkered or any of the other synonyms for “made worse” by her very real, very human journey to figure out her relationship with tennis, with her family, and to take care of her mental health. It actually makes her career quite a bit cooler that she didn’t buy into the mythology of greatness and project superiority, and it is not a bad thing that I will think of her tennis success and her very public mental health journey when I think “Naomi Osaka.” It is, conversely, to her tremendous credit that I do.

Osaka is in no way the first professional athlete to be open about her mental health, but it is exceedingly rare for a player of her level to do so. She was the best player in the world and one of the most public athletes in the broader sports world. Her hiatuses and admission that she wasn’t really enjoying tennis anymore were not admissions of defeat but of humanity, and statements that took serious courage in a sports world that expects stoic greatness.

There’s a persistent question throughout The Bear, a great TV show about loss, family and fine dining, about whether or not Carmy, a world-class chef, actually enjoys cooking. Sure, it’s meaningful to him, sure, it matters quite a lot to him, but does he actually enjoy it? Everyone expects him to; we are inclined to think he should enjoy it, but throughout the show we’re confronted with plenty of evidence that cooking is Carmy’s pain as much as it is his passion.

Whether or not we enjoy doing what we do every day is a question we could all stand to ask ourselves, but professional athletes are never given the chance. They don’t just “do” sports — they are among the tippy, tippy top of all human beings ever to attempt that sport in the history of the world. How could they not enjoy it when they have more talent in a pinky finger than the rest of us have combined?

But life isn’t that simple. Enjoyment often comes and goes, and all of us struggle with our mental health at some point. Whether or not your talent is worth sacrificing other parts of your life is not a simple question, and the answer changes over time. At the peak of her tennis career, Naomi Osaka was brave enough to ask.

And now she’s back on the stage that started it all: the US Open. Now a fashion icon showing the sometimes-conservative tennis-watching public what it means to look cool, Osaka is coming off a tremendous showing at Wimbledon, beating world number one Aryna Sabalenka before bowing out in the quarterfinal. Hard court is certainly her best surface, and Osaka will draw massive crowds in Queens. She certainly looks like she likes tennis again, but if tomorrow she doesn’t? That’s fine, too.