Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion, turned 28 on Thursday, October 16.
Happy 28th b-day to four-time major champion Naomi Osaka 🥳 pic.twitter.com/sDPe5ElAhR
— TennisNow (@Tennis_Now) October 16, 2025
Osaka had been playing in her home tournament, the Japan Open, this week.
She was scheduled to play Romanian Jaqueline Cristian in the quarterfinals on her birthday. She was forced to withdraw from the tournament with a thigh injury.
Top seed Naomi Osaka has withdrawn from her home tournament with an injury. 🚨
Hope to see the 4x slam champ back on court soon. ❤️🩹#JapanOpen pic.twitter.com/sWdgRAZgCQ
— Tennis Channel (@TennisChannel) October 17, 2025
Despite this disappointment, Osaka has had a successful 2025 season.
Naomi Osaka In 2025
Naomi Osaka says that’s a wrap on her year so I don’t think she is playing Tokyo. Get well soon. ❤️🩹 pic.twitter.com/MQr69KYhSw
— LaWanda (@lawanda50) October 17, 2025
Her biggest accomplishment was finishing as a finalist at the 2025 Canadian Open which crowned local teenager Victoria Mboko as the WTA 1000 tournament champion.
Osaka was also a finalist at the season’s opening tournament, the ASB Classic. She was forced to retire leading the match 6-4 against Clara Tauson with an abdominal/rib injury.
She also was a US Open semifinalist losing to Amanda Anisimova. Osaka defeated Coco Gauff in the Round of 16.
To refine her game, she dropped down and played a WTA 125 level clay court tournament in Saint-Malo France and won the event. It marked her first WTA level title win since becoming a mother.
Multiple coaching changes also headlined Osaka’s season. Last September, she hired Serena’s former coach Patrick Mouratoglou but parted ways with him in the middle of the year. She then hired Iga Swiatek’s former coach Tomasz Wiktorowski.
Ironically, Iga Swiatek is now working with another of Osaka’s former coaches, Wim Fissette.
Can Naomi Osaka Win Another Grand Slam?
Osaka has made it clear that she returned to the WTA Tour after giving birth to be in contention in high-profile tournaments. She is a four-time Grand Slam champion, all of those wins happened on hard courts between the Fall of 2018 and the Winter of 2021.
Though she is not known for her clay court play, she came very close to defeating Iga Swiatek at the 2024 French Open.
Osaka would need to be physically and mentally at her best to compete for another Grand Slam win. The WTA rankings are loaded with players of all ages that are capable of winning at any given tournament. When she is healthy and playing well, her game is a pleasure to watch with natural power and strokes that look effortless.
