Australian Open 2024: Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber... 'strong mums' of competitive tennis

Naomi Osaka’s last title was at the Australian Open in 2021. (Illustration by Suneesh K)

A host of returning stars of tennis, some of them post-motherhood, will add a fascinating dimension to the women’s draw of the Australian Open, which begins 14 January.

Naomi Osaka leads the field, a two-time champion (2019, 2021), who returned to tennis after 15 months with the Brisbane International this month, losing in the second round to Karolina Pliskova, who herself returned to competitive tennis from injury after four months. Osaka, a two-time US Open champion and former world No. 1, had her daughter Shai in July 2023, but her career started derailing in mid-2021, when she pulled out of the French Open and later Wimbledon, citing mental health issues and troubles dealing with the media.

Joining Osaka at the Australian Open this year would be other new mothers, former champion Angelique Kerber (2016), who had her daughter Liana in February 2023, and Caroline Wozniacki (winner in 2018), who returned to competitive tennis as a mother of two in August last year. Former Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova, who has withdrawn from Melbourne next week, announced her pregnancy at the beginning of this year.

While Wozniacki’s return has been fairly rapid—she reached the fourth round of the US Open last September—Osaka and Kerber begin afresh, eager to get back to their best and to impress their young children.

“Becoming a mum made me realise how strong I am, and how strong all mums are,” Osaka told BBC Sport. “I also want mums to feel like they are capable of anything, because I think they are.”

Her strength and conditioning coach Florian Zitzelsberger told BBC Sport, “When we came to the question of ambitions, and how much motivation she has, she just said she wants to use every minute she has now to get back there and make her daughter proud. Just these few sentences showed me that she’s really ready to do the hard work again and conquer the tour again.”

Osaka, a prominent voice on social issues and mental health, used her time off tennis to set up her own sports agency Evolve, which signed controversial and outspoken Nick Kyrgios as its first client and also has world No. 6 Ons Jabeur on its roster.

Tennis has a rich tradition of mothers making triumphant returns to the highest level of the sport. Belgium’s Kim Clijsters won three (of her four) Grand Slam titles after she had her daughter, Jada, in February 2008. She retired from the sport in 2007 to get married and returned to the tour in 2009, winning the US Open that year—the first unseeded, unranked female champion and the first mother to win a major since 1980. Before her, in an era when the sport was more languid and didn’t possess the current era’s athleticism, Margaret Court, Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Lindsay Davenport returned to tennis, winning Grand Slams and/or other titles.

Other lesser-known names like Australian Casey Dellacqua, Tatjana Maria of Germany, Russian Evgeniya Rodina and Kateryna Bondarenko of Ukraine, besides doubles players like Cara Black, Klaudia Jans-Ignacik, Maria José Martinez Sánchez and Katalin Marosi competed vigorously on the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Tour.

“I actually watched part of her match against Jen Brady on the court there (at Arthur Ashe Stadium),” Sam Stosur told ausopen.com, referring to Wozniacki’s third-round victory at the US Open. “I thought her level straight up was phenomenal, given how quick her comeback was, and now she’s taken another couple of months off, getting ready for the summer.”

“Who knows what we’ll see from Osaka and Kerber? Let’s say Osaka: if she came out and won AO (Australian Open), I think that would be incredible,” she told the website.

According to reports, Osaka had not hit a competitive ball since September 2022, before winning her first-round match at Brisbane, beating Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch in straight sets. Osaka’s last title was at the Australian Open in 2021.

Kerber won her last Grand Slam title more than five years ago at Wimbledon, and hasn’t played tennis for 18 months—her last competitive match was at Wimbledon in July 2022 when she lost in the third round. She lost her first three return matches, playing for Team Germany, to Jasmine Paolini, Caroline Garcia and Maria Sakkari in the United Cup in Sydney this month. Her only win in the United Cup came in the semifinals, a 4-6 6-2 7-6 win over Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic, before she lost to Poland’s Iga Swiatek in the final (though Germany beat Poland 2-1).

Osaka and Kerber will return to the Australian Open, the season’s first major, on their protected rankings of 31 and 46, respectively, making them dangerous early-round opponents for other players.

“They’re not going to be seeded, I don’t think, so that’s going to be really tricky. They’re going to be floating around the draw—that’s kind of scary,” world No. 5 Jessica Pegula told ausopen.com, specifically referring to Osaka, Kerber and Wozniacki.

Osaka told BBC Sport that winning Grand Slam titles and representing Japan in the Olympics would be wonderful, but that it is more important to “cherish” every tournament she plays. “I can’t really say whether I’m going to do amazing or not, but I feel pretty good with where I’m at right now and I’m pretty competitive.”