About two years ago, the four-time Grand Slam champion, whose last U.S. Open victory was in 2020, attended Arthur Ashe Stadium as a spectator, just two months after giving birth to her first child, daughter Shai. Osaka was in New York City with Olympic champion to participate in a , alongside then U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, discussing mental health in sports. The next evening, she observed American beat Karolína Muchová in the semifinals, during Gauff’s journey to the 2023 U.S. Open title.
Observing Gauff at that time, Osaka, now 27, harbored uncertainties about her ability to perform at such an elevated level again. Yet, she could still visualize her return to Arthur Ashe Stadium, deep into a U.S. Open, contending for another major championship. “Maybe I’m crazy or something,” Osaka stated after defeating Gauff, the world’s third-ranked player and current French Open champion, 6-3, 6-2 in a Monday fourth-round match that lasted barely an hour. “But I always feel like you have to imagine it, and then you have to believe it for it to actually come true.”
“You’re also speaking to the kid that visualized playing Serena too,” Osaka added, recalling her memorable in the U.S. Open final. “So I feel like there’s a lot of power in dreaming and believing.”
She needed all of that belief. Since her victory at the 2021 Australian Open, Osaka struggled to regain her elite status after public battles with her mental health and other obstacles. She has stated she experienced “extremely bad” postpartum depression following Shai’s birth, and since her return to professional tennis in 2024, she had reached the third round of a major championship only twice before this year’s U.S. Open. In fact, Osaka was eliminated in the first round of last year’s Australian and U.S. Opens, and this year’s French Open. In the press conference after that loss in Paris, she made a comment about her then-coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who previously worked with Serena Williams. “He goes from working with, like, the greatest player ever to, like, ‘What the (expletive) is this?’” Osaka . She then walked away in tears.
However, Osaka’s performance at this year’s U.S. Open is expected to significantly reduce any uncertainty—whether internal or external—about her potential to win again. Her decisive triumph over Gauff, who succeeded Osaka as the world’s highest-paid female athlete, propels Osaka into the quarterfinals on Tuesday, where she will compete against 11th-seeded Karolina Muchovia of Czechia.
Osaka has advanced to the quarterfinals of a major tournament four times. On all four occasions, she has emerged as the champion.
Osaka’s in athletics is secure; another journey to a title, after becoming a mother and taking some years to rediscover her stride, would merely add to her legacy, both on and off the court. In protest of the 2020 police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin, Osaka—who is Black and Japanese, raised in the U.S. but representing Japan—announced her withdrawal from her next match; the entire tournament soon paused before Osaka and other athletes resumed play.
During her quest for the U.S. Open championship that year, she famously wore facemasks inscribed with the names of Black victims of alleged police or racist violence. The subsequent year, she withdrew from the French Open to focus on her well-being, a decision that mental health struggles in sports. “It’s O.K. to not be O.K.,” Osaka after the 2021 French Open. Simultaneously, critics scorned her position and the later decision of U.S. gymnast to withdraw from the all-around competition at that year’s Tokyo Olympics, where Osaka lit the cauldron, citing her mental well-being.
Osaka has persistently been a focal point of controversy in some circles: during this year’s Canadian Open final, she neglected to congratulate Victoria Mboko on the court after their match, which Mboko won. Critics Osaka later stated she unintentionally forgot to do so.
The Canadian Open, held in Montreal in July and August, seemed to be a turning point for Osaka’s season. She highlights a second-round match against Liudmila Samsonova, where she saved two match points, as a crucial moment. “I was genuinely frustrated for a long time because I felt like I was playing well, but there was just something I couldn’t quite grasp if I was missing or if it was simply a mentality issue,” Osaka remarked. “Then I played Samsonova, and I did not surrender until the very last point. Evidently, I ended up winning that. I think from that moment on I simply endeavored to be the most determined fighter I could be.”
Despite Osaka’s strong performance in her highly anticipated match with Gauff, the American contributed to her own downfall, making 33 unforced errors compared to Osaka’s 12. Before the U.S. Open, Gauff made the surprising move to change coaches, enlisting biomechanics expert Gavin MacMillan to improve her struggling serve. While Gauff served effectively—she committed only five double-faults (to Osaka’s zero), matched Osaka’s ace count (3 each), and even hit more first-serves in than Osaka (66% vs 42%) while essentially matching her first-serve speed (104.1 miles per hour compared to 104.8 miles per hour for Osaka)—the areas of her game where she typically had the most confidence, namely groundstrokes and service return, faltered.
“I woke up today thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be a good day for me where I’m going to play well,’ and then out there I just don’t know what happened,” Gauff commented after the match. “I felt so disorganized on the court, because it’s, like, I’m serving well, but not returning well. The last two years everybody can agree that’s like a strange notion.”
Gauff’s collaboration with MacMillan is still in its early stages, and with her serve already demonstrating improvement, along with her age—21—hinting at potential prime years ahead, she pledges not to be disheartened for too long after her defeat by Osaka. “I am not going to let this crush me,” Gauff stated.
When it comes to resilience, Osaka can now guide Gauff. Osaka has not allowed the disappointments and critics of the past nearly five years to derail her. She is clearly enjoying her time in New York. On Monday, she showcased her latest , a sparkling plush toy from the that she named Althea Glitterson (other bejeweled Labubus accompanying her at the U.S. Open include Billie Jean Bling and ).
With Gauff no longer in the tournament, Osaka is set to become the sentimental crowd favorite in the women’s draw moving forward. Her comeback narrative is simply too captivating.
“This is my favorite court in the world,” she conveyed to the Ashe Stadium fans after the match. “And it means so much to me to be back here.”
