ROLAND GARROS

May 25, 2024

Naomi Osaka

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Naomi, welcome back to Paris. Just talk us through how you're feeling and how your preparations have been ahead of the tournament.

NAOMI OSAKA: Yeah, my preparations have been really good. After Rome I went back to Mallorca, trained a little bit, and now I'm here and I'm really excited to play my first match tomorrow.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. You talked at the start of the year about wanting to really dedicate yourself to clay and then ultimately grass and become a very different player on the surfaces. How much progress do you feel you have made on clay over the last six weeks?

NAOMI OSAKA: I think I have made a significant amount of progress, and I feel like people can kind of see that throughout the tournaments that I have played, but I feel like I have dedicated a lot of time to learning about clay.

I don't know. I just want to do well, and I want to keep beating really good players. Hopefully the last stop here I'll play well too.

Q. There is obviously quite a few players who haven't always been strong on clay and have come to it later. Katie Boulter said yesterday one of the things thinking about it is it's actually not that different from hard court. Have you found that your mindset about how you approach the surface has changed at all, maybe stop thinking clay is that different and maybe treat it more like a hard court?

NAOMI OSAKA: I felt that way before this year, but I honestly, for me, I find that just thinking about it as another challenge. And honestly at this point I feel pretty comfortable on clay to the point where I don't know if I'll be a little confused my first day back on hard (smiling), but I also think it's because I have been in Europe for what feels like a very long time already.

But, yeah, I think clay is fun. You get to slide around. You get to see how strong you are, in and out of corners. I think for me there is a lot of really valuable lessons that I'm learning from clay court tennis.

Q. Now that you're what, about five months into this comeback, wonder if you can compare the level of the competition now versus when you were coming up as a player, first, and who you were confronting. Because it seems like you have a lot of hard matches these days. Curious if you felt that way in your younger years.

NAOMI OSAKA: I do feel like I felt that way in my younger years, too, but I think now I just haven't played as many matches. But also, my mentality is a lot different. I think when I was younger, I also used to play a lot of three-set matches, so maybe the matches look different now, but I don't think you can play a tennis match that isn't tough, so that's kind of my answer.

Q. Don't mothers have to be clay courters?

NAOMI OSAKA: I'm so sorry, what?

Q. Don't mothers have to be clay courters? Don't they have to be patient, don't they have to be resilient, don't they have to react and adapt to their kids all the time?

NAOMI OSAKA: Yeah. (Laughter.)

That's a funny question, but yeah, I do think, like, moms do have to be all of those things. And there's people that are naturally like that anyways. But for me, yeah, I am learning a lot of lessons through motherhood, and I hope that I can remember to apply them on the tennis court.

Q. I know tennis players don't like to look ahead quite often in the draw.

NAOMI OSAKA: Oh, don't tell me anything, please.

Q. I can't tell you anything?

NAOMI OSAKA: No.

Q. Okay. I will ask you a different question. What do you think about your first-round opponent? What do you know about her?

NAOMI OSAKA: You're stressing me out (smiling).

I don't think I have ever played her, not to my knowledge. So I've seen her around, and I know that anyone that's playing this tournament is a really tough opponent. Plus it's a first round of a slam. I'm usually quite nervous during those first-round matches. So I'm just going in there trying my best and seeing if all the lessons that I have learned so far have adapted me into a better player.

Q. I believe you're being reunited with your daughter here, right? Explain what it's been like seeing her again and what it was like being away from her during this period.

NAOMI OSAKA: Yeah, I mean, being away from her was really tough, but I called her every day. I saw how well she was doing and I saw how happy she was, so that made me happy too.

But yesterday she, like, walked for the first time, so I was really happy about that (smiling). We're going to practice some more when I get back. But yeah, it's really cool to have her here, just to see how much she's grown and how many things she's doing differently. It's kind of surreal.

Q. You mentioned the idea of being nervous. Is that the same every tournament? Is it different at a Grand Slam tournament? Different surfaces? Anything like that? What is it about going into the first round at a place that maybe gives you nerves that are perhaps different than other rounds?

NAOMI OSAKA: I think for me I always feel a lot more nervous during the first round of slams, just because I want to do well so badly, and the first round is the first round, so you kind of almost feel like the tournament didn't even start and you're out if you lose.

That's for me what I feel. But I think, I don't know, growing up, the slams were the tournaments that I watched on TV the most. I just want to be here for as long as I can.

Q. In your past days you were as dominant as Iga Swiatek and Sabalenka right now. How far away do you think you are from that level that especially Iga brings out basically every tournament?

NAOMI OSAKA: I mean, I feel like you would have to tell me that (smiling). I think that's kind of more of an outside perspective. For me, I'm so focused on what I'm doing. And I know, like, they're playing incredible tennis and they're doing it almost always. And I was never the type of player to do that, anyways.

So I'm looking at them as an inspiration, and I don't know. This part of my journey, I'm not really comparing myself right now. Maybe later when I get more confident and towards the level that I want, maybe on hard court I can start doing that, but as of right now, I really feel like I'm really just kind of learning again.

(Naomi's answers to questions in Japanese.)

NAOMI OSAKA: I don't like that everyone is asking me about this draw now. Oh, my God. That's not good at all (smiling).

Well, the thing is I'm so inexperienced on clay courts that I wouldn't be able to tell you if it's faster or not or if it's slower. I hit on the stadium today, and obviously it was really early in the morning, so the clay was a bit more packed. But honestly that's the only thing I can tell you. For me, clay feels like clay. That's about it.

Yeah, I would say my lessons for this clay court season so far are just taking everything in stride. I think I'm the type of person that if I lose a point or if I lose a game, I tend to really get down on myself. But I think just learning through those points and taking everything as an opportunity for me is one of the biggest lessons I have learned so far.

And also just observing other players more, watching how they play, watching how they move. I think the clay court is a little bit like a dance. I don't know. It's just really fun to watch people slide. It's fun to watch the shot-making, the choices and why they do the things they do.

I mean, one of my biggest goals since I was a kid was obviously to win a medal in the Olympics. I feel like everyone that plays Olympics wants to win a medal, so we are all kind of reaching for the same goal. I don't know. That would be my goal. I have a bunch of mini goals that would hopefully lead me into that big goal, which is, you know, to have fun, to enjoy the experience a lot more. Enjoy the opening ceremony which I didn't -- not saying that it wasn't enjoyable, but I wasn't able to be in there because I had to wait in a waiting room. Yeah, just seeing everything and witnessing, I guess.