Osaka Continues Her Groundbreaking Season with a Wimbledon Milestone

It has been a spring and summer of long awaited breakthroughs for Naomi Osaka. 

(No, we’re not talking about her fashion, though that has been remarkable as well).

The four-time major champion has often spoken of her desire to improve her game on clay and grass in recent years, but until 2026 her efforts in that department did not bear fruit – her first seven Roland-Garros and her first six Wimbledon appearances did not net a single trip to the second week. 

2026 has been a different story, as the Japanese star has now reached the second week at both. 

She played the round of 16 in Paris, falling to Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets (she is now 11-8 lifetime in Paris), and today she continued her strong play at Wimbledon with a 6-1 6-3 win over Daria Kasatkina. Osaka has not dropped a set through three rounds, and in fact has lost just 15 games. 

Osaka, who made her debut at Wimbledon in 2017, is now 10-5 lifetime at the championships. 

She will face either Aryna Sabalenka or Jelena Ostapenko next. 

If it is Sabalenka, she will have the chance to demonstrate her improvement against a player who has won all three matches they have played this year, at Indian Wells, Madrid and Roland Garros. 

Wiktorowski Helping Her Blossom on Grass

Osaka is quick to credit her coach Tomasz Wiktorowski for helping her evolve on the slippery surface.

“I would say he challenges me a lot to think outside the box,” she said. “Even like coming into this grass season, we were doing a lot of things on the hard court because where I train, they don’t have a grass court. We were just doing a lot of different things.

“It’s kind of made me understand grass court tennis a lot more. I think when I was younger, I was a little bit more stubborn on how I wanted to play on this surface, but I realize it’s a lot more free-flowing.”

Osaka said that even on hard courts, she has been doing drills that forced her to see “the speed of the ball” and made her “more aware of the depth of the ball.”

That said, Osaka says that her coach gives her plenty of agency to play her way on the grass.

“I think on grass Tomasz doesn’t actually talk to me as much as he does on clay,” she said. “He kind of just tells me to trust my instincts and trust myself going forward. If anything, he tells me to keep up the speed of my ball. So that’s kind of the plan that we’ve been having.

“Obviously there’s little things here and there depending on the opponents that I play. But it feels more, like, internal from my end.”