Naomi Osaka took to social media to express her frustration with crashing out in the first round of the BNP Paribas Open.
The four-time Grand Slam champion was beaten 6-4, 6-4, by Colombia’s Camila Osorio, currently ranked 53rd in the world. Osaka was broken three times and only won 39% of her second service points. It is the first time she has lost her opening main draw match at the WTA 1000 event in five appearances. Last year she reached the third round before losing to Elise Mertens.
“Worst match I’ve ever played in my life. Wow, I’m so sorry to everyone who watched that,” the former world No.1 wrote on Threads after her defeat.
However, Osaka was easier on herself when discussing her latest performance with the media. It was the first time she had played on the Tour since the Australian Open when she retired from her clash with Belinda Bencic after the first set due to injury. Osaka says she is now injury-free after experiencing issues with her abdomen.
“I don’t think it was too good on my end,” she said. “There were certain things that felt extremely off because I could only start to practice serving after a certain amount of time and stuff like that.
“So I think given the situation, it wasn’t that terrible. But I would have liked to win and continue playing the tournament.”
So far in 2025, Osaka has won six out of nine Tour matches played with two of her three defeats being due to retirement. In January she reached her first final since 2022 at the ASB Classic in Auckland. Whilst frustrated by her recent injury layoff, she draws inspiration from her struggles of last season.
“I would say the hardest thing (about her injury layoff) is feeling like I could have done extremely well in the Australian Open, and then just having to get into the repetition of practicing again and trying to get stronger for tournaments like this one and then not doing well here. It sucks but I feel like I’m also used to it from last year.” Osaka commented.
“When I think about last year, I feel completely fine right now because 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.”
Osaka will return to action at the Miami Open later this month.
