Early Indian Wells exit “feels like a little bump in the road” for Naomi Osaka
Playing her first match since retiring from the third round at the Australian Open, Osaka was defeated by Camila Osorio in straight sets at the BNP Paribas Open
Naomi Osaka Indian Wells 2025 (Tristan Lapierre)
Following her first round loss at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, former world No 1 Naomi Osaka revealed that she was disappointed but, at the same time, felt that this was just ‘a little bump on the road’.
Playing her first match since pulling out of her third round match at the Australian Open due to an abdominal injury, Osaka fell to Camila Osorio 6-4, 6-4 in what was her first match in six weeks.
In her press conference following the match, Osaka confirmed that she was physically feeling fine now but rusty after the lay-off, which impacted her ability to practice her serve until very recently.
“I think firstly, I’m not injured. I feel really good, which is, I guess, a positive to take out of this,” Osaka told the media. “Then secondly, yeah, it feels really weird, because I do think I did well in Australia. It feels like a little bit of a stopping/starting again. So I think it would have been really helpful to play more matches coming into this tournament, but obviously I couldn’t.”
“The same thing kind of goes with my tennis today. Like, there were certain things that felt extremely off, because I could only start practice serving after a certain amount of time and stuff like that. So I think given the situation, it wasn’t that terrible, but, like, I would have liked to win and continue playing the tournament.”
I’ll be back in Miami, and hopefully I’ll have way more serve practice under my belt and things like that.
Osaka, who had struggled to deal with losses in her pre-maternity avatar, said although the latest loss is tough, she is not pressing the alarm bells.
“The hardest thing is, like, feeling like I could have done extremely well in the Australian Open, and then just having to, I guess, get into the repetition of practicing again and trying to get stronger for tournaments like this one and then not doing well here, it kind of, I don’t know, it sucks, but, like, I feel like I’m also used to it from last year.
“Like, when I think about last year, I feel completely fine right now, because I know that, I don’t know, it just feels like a little bump in the road. I’ll be back in Miami, and hopefully I’ll have way more serve practice under my belt and things like that.”
