It is time to speak about Naomi Osaka’s tennis, specifically on the green stuff.
The Japanese superstar – one of the 10 highest-paid female athletes on the planet – has generated more headlines for her walk-on outfits at grand slams this year, but might be on her way to winning her maiden Wimbledon title.
That would have been an outlandish scenario not so long ago for a player who is historically an underachiever on grass courts.
But former world No.1 Osaka is changing that in real time, blasting 25 winners on Friday in dispatching Russian-born Australian Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 6-3, to reach the round of 16 at the All England club for the first time. She was particularly devastating in the opening set.
Up next is top seed Aryna Sabalenka, in a certain centre court blockbuster.
Sabalenka, who ousted Latvian firebrand Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets, has also never won a Wimbledon championship despite her long-term dominance on the WTA Tour.
After relatively struggling for so long on a surface that mystifies and befuddles many, Osaka is suddenly like a baby deer learning to walk.
“I was expecting it to be a tough match for me because with [Osaka’s] way of playing, honestly, grass must suit her well,” Kasatkina said.
“I think she’s starting to find her way on grass, and you can see this with the result as well.”
Osaka had never won a match on Wimbledon’s show court No.1 before the Kasatkina win – but there might be more firsts this fortnight if the 14th seed keeps this up after a difficult relationship with grass courts in the past.
Best known as a hardcourt specialist who has won two Australian Opens and two US Opens, she revealed after her first-round win this week that she had made a concerted effort to embrace the clay and grass-court seasons.
Funnily enough, Osaka’s preparation for her Wimbledon title tilt came on a hard court with her Polish coach Tomasz Wiktorowski.
“I would say he challenges me a lot to think outside the box,” Osaka said.
“Coming into this grass season, we were doing a lot of things on hard court because where I train [in Los Angeles], they don’t have a grass court. We were doing a lot of different things [designed to bring me forward in the court]. It made me understand grasscourt tennis a lot more.
“I think when I was younger, I was a bit more stubborn on how I wanted to play on this surface, but I realise it’s a lot more free-flowing.”
Osaka spent 25 weeks at the top of the rankings in 2019 before Australia’s Ash Barty took over until her retirement after her drought-busting Australian Open triumph four years ago.
Plenty has happened in between for Osaka.
She relinquished her US citizenship to retain her Japanese nationality in late 2019; withdrew mid-tournament from Roland-Garros in 2021 after earlier announcing she would not conduct post-match media conferences to preserve her mental health; and took a break from the tour to give birth to her daughter, Shae, in mid-2023.
Osaka has shown only glimpses of her peak self since – headlined by her US Open semi-final run last year – but has leaned into her love for fashion.
She strode onto Melbourne Park’s Rod Laver Arena in January in a lavish, jellyfish-inspired outfit then appeared at Roland-Garros in a glittering gold ensemble before honouring her Japanese heritage with an extravagant white kimono at Wimbledon.
Unlike other players, Osaka prefers the focus to be on her clothing than what she is doing with her racquet.
“In some ways, I feel like I’m a lot more equipped to talk about my clothes than to talk about my tennis,” she said. “It’s strange because I’ve been playing tennis for 20-something years [yet] some days I don’t feel like an expert on it.”
Among the other women to advance were 2025 semi-finalist Belinda Bencic, while 2024 US Open finalist Jessica Pegula and rising star Iva Jovic set up an all-American showdown for a quarter-final spot.
On the men’s side, world No.1 Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic remain on a semi-final collision course.
Sinner downed American Jenson Brooksby 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, but Djokovic had to work harder to see off 25th-seeded Frenchman Arthur Rinderknech 7-5, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (7-4), capped by a spectacular match point where both men ended up falling to the court.
Qualifiers Roman Safiullin and Shintaro Mochizuki also progressed with respective wins over young guns Joao Fonseca and Rafael Jodar, while resurgent German Jan-Lennard Struff eliminated Daniil Medvedev, 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5), 7-5.
“It’s a strange feeling to play Jannik [next] at Wimbledon, especially now this year. I was not winning much before coming here, and I don’t know how I have been winning matches here,” Mochizuki said.
“I’m excited, but at the same time, I feel a little bit strange to be here in the round of 16. I just want to keep enjoying it.”
Meanwhile, Kasatkina’s focus now shifts to her post-Wimbledon nuptials with her Olympic silver medal-winning figure skating fiancee Natalia Zabiiako in Athens, Greece.
They are coincidentally getting married on the same day as Australian top-10 star Alex de Minaur – who faces American Zachary Svajda on Saturday for a fourth-round berth – and British player Katie Boulter, in the week after Wimbledon finishes.
“We’re going to have, like, 40 people. We’ve been working on this for like a year, so I hope our guests are going to like it,” Kasatkina said.
“A few [players are attending]. I told them, ‘If you play Athens 250, I will kill you’. It’s going to be great, honestly, and I’m really looking forward to it.”
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