Naomi Osaka Announces Pregnancy and Intends to Relaunch Tennis Career in 2024
Four-time Grand Slam singles champion Naomi Osaka hasn't played a WTA Tour match since the first round of the Toray Pan Pacific Open in September 2022.
Naomi Osaka explained her decision to skip the 2023 Australian Open in a Twitter announcement around 2:20 AM JST on Thursday, January 12, revealing that she's pregnant.
Osaka's tweet was reposted more than 25,900 times in the next nine hours. And it was viewed more than 18.9 million times on the social media site in that span.
The four-time Grand Slam singles champion, including titles at the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021, said she is planning to launch a comeback next year.
"2023 will be a year that'll be full of lessons for me and I hope I'll see you guys in the start of the next one cause I'll be at Aus 2024," tweeted Osaka, who turned 25 in October 2022. "Love you all infinitely."
She also wrote in her tweet that she's excited about this next chapter in her life.
"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,' " Osaka said in the tweet.
The Australian Open, the year's first Grand Slam, is set to get underway on Monday, January 16.