"I feel her motivation to come back and do great things again" - Patrick Mouratoglou details his coaching partnership with Naomi Osaka
WTA
Japanese tennis superstar Naomi Osaka has faced an uphill battle ever since her return to the WTA following her maternity leave, but coach Patrick Mouratoglou believes the former World No.1 is willing to do what it takes to return to the top.
After giving birth to her first child in July 2023, Osaka began her preparations to return to the court. The two-time Australian Open champion sustained a few injuries along the way which hampered her progress. However, Osaka has also shown flashes of her brilliance as she embraces motherhood and being a professional athlete.
Mouratoglou amazed by Osaka's strong work ethic
The French coach began working with Osaka in September 2024, as the Japanese star looked to return to the form that saw her achieve Grand Slam success. In an appearance on The Tennis Channel, Mouratoglou was full of admiration for all the hard work Osaka was putting in, stating he himself felt inspired based off her motivation to succeed.
"I'm very motivated because I feel her motivation to come back and to do great things again," said Mouratoglou. "When we started, I think she was going through a difficult period—we all know the story she went through—and then she had a baby. I think she started quite well because she reached the fourth round in the first tournament—it was in China. Then her abs broke, she had to pull out, then two months off.
"I think she's really practicing well, she's improving a lot, but if you look at the past three or four years, she really lacks matches. She really needs to play much more, and I'm sure that everything will fall back in place once she is able to compete regularly."
"I think she's really practicing well, she's improving a lot, but if you look at the past three or four years, she really lacks matches. She really needs to play much more, and I'm sure that everything will fall back in place once she is able to compete regularly."
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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