Former World No. 1 Naomi Osaka is pregnant and taking the year off from tennis, vowing to return at the 2024 Australian Open.
She announced Wednesday in a social media post that she billed as a “little life update” that she is skipping play in 2023, without specifically mentioning her pregnancy. However, she included a photo of an ultrasound and wrote about her future child.
“I know that I have so much to look forward to in the future, one thing I’m looking forward to is for my kid to watch one of my matches and tell someone, “that’s my mom.” haha. 2023 will be a year that’ll be full of lessons for me,” Osaka wrote.
Osaka, 25, withdrew from the upcoming Australian Open four days ago but didn’t offer an explanation.
Now ranked No. 47 in the world, she was No. 1 in January 2019. The Japan native has four Grand Slam titles — two Australian Opens (2019, 2021) and two U.S. Opens (2018, 2020) — among her seven career victories. She has won nearly $21.8 million on the court but in May, Forbes reported that she had earned $58 million, pre-taxes and agents’ fees — over the previous 12 months, thanks to her sponsorship of brands that include Nike and Louis Vuitton.
She won’t have to worry about agents fees in the future. Last May, she split with her agents and co-founded her own agency, called Evolve, which counts tennis stars Nick Kyrgios and Ons Jabeur among its clients.
Osaka played in just 11 tournaments in 2022. She took much of season off in 2021 for mental health reasons.
–Field Level Media
