Former world number one Naomi Osaka cast doubt on her future Sunday saying she would consider quitting tennis if her three-year-old daughter asked her to.<\/p>\n
The four-time Grand Slam champion from Japan took 15 months away from the sport after the birth of her daughter Shai, before returning in 2023.<\/p>\n
She is in Tokyo to play at the Pan Pacific Open this week and said becoming a mother had reshaped her priorities.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t say I’m part-timing it but my entire day doesn’t consist of that,” said the 29-year-old, now ranked 19 in the world.<\/p>\n
“It’s tough, sometimes I look towards my future and I often wonder how long I’m going to play.<\/p>\n
“Because if my daughter did say she didn’t want me to travel as much, I’m not the type of person to ignore that.”<\/p>\n
Osaka<\/a> also stepped away from tennis in 2021 to prioritise her mental health.<\/p>\n She said her “mindset is changing a lot” with age.<\/p>\n “My daughter is my biggest priority,” she said.\u00a0“I try my best to put as much energy as I can into tennis.<\/p>\n “If I think about it in certain ways, I’m really proud of where I am now because it’s not like I can dedicate my entire time to the sport.”<\/p>\n Online abuse<\/p>\n Osaka said juggling her duties as a player and a mother was something she was “figuring out little by little”.<\/p>\n She also offered support to the American Coco Gauff<\/a>, who said she had received an “insane” amount of racist abuse on the internet at this month’s China Open.<\/p>\n World number five Gauff, who is Black, said the experience had been “kind of draining”.<\/p>\n Osaka, whose mother is Japanese and father from Haiti, said “nobody should have to go through that”.<\/p>\n “It’s sad, but I’m used to it on my end,” she said.<\/p>\n “I feel like for me, I’ve dealt with that my entire career through decisions that I make that seem to make some people upset. It’s tough.”<\/p>\n Osaka said efforts made by women’s tennis governing body the WTA to combat social media abuse did not “ever seem to fully work all the way”.<\/p>\n “I know that some people are like, OK, if it bothers you that much, stay off social media,” said Osaka.<\/p>\n “But sometimes that’s the best way to connect with your fans.<\/p>\n “From my end, what I do about it is I don’t really go on social media at all.”<\/p>\n Osaka is seeded seven in Tokyo and plays Italy’s Jasmine Paolini<\/a> in the first round.<\/p>\n World number one Elena Rybakina<\/a> of Kazakhstan and Philippines sensation Alexandra Eala<\/a> are also competing.<\/p>\n Osaka said she was “not far off” from finding her best form and was “optimistic for next year”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former world number one Naomi Osaka cast doubt on her future Sunday saying she would consider quitting tennis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-894450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}