Naomi Osaka recently said that she was missing her little daughter Shai at a press conference in Doha on Sunday.
Osaka took more than a year-long maternity leave before coming back to court in January 2024. Despite waiting until the end of the year to travel, she gave birth to Shai in July 2023.
A week before, Osaka competed at the Abu Dhabi Open, but her experience there was not good, as she lost her opening match to Danielle Collins. Interestingly, she will face Carolina Garcia once more to begin the Qatar Open while she is in Doha.
The 26-year-old gave the media an update before the game on a variety of topics, including the need to be with her daughter Shai. She revealed Shai will be traveling with her on the next WTA tour’s European swing.
She said: “Of course, I really miss my daughter, but I’m looking forward to her traveling with me because she’ll come to Europe. I guess that also makes me very excited to go to Europe. So she’s coming to Indian Wells and Miami. You won’t see her, though, because I guess she’ll just be at the house, but I think I do need to be a lot smarter with my scheduling because I want to make time for her, and I don’t want her to not have me in her memories.”
Osaka in Doha, ranking, and results in 2024
Now ranked no.747, Osaka achieved a compiled 3-3 record in 2024. The Japanese is now having a run in Doha where she ousted the world no.21 Caroline Garcia 7-5 6-4, the world no.67 Petra Martic 6-3 7-69 and the world no.37 Lesya Tsurenko w/o.
Naomi Osaka will come up against the world no.59 Karolina Pliskova in the quarter. Their current record is 4-2 for Pliskova.
Naomi won 7 titles in her career: all of them conquered on hard courts. (See the list of her titles)
Naomi Osaka |
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