The field for the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic added a major name Monday morning as Naomi Osaka accepted a wild card bid to play in the tournament.
This will mark Osaka’s first time playing in the tournament since it moved to San Jose State’s campus, and her WTA main draw debut came at the tournament in 2014, when it was held at Stanford. This year’s tournament will run from August 1-7.
Osaka is currently ranked No. 38 in the world but was the WTA’s top-ranked player for 25 weeks in 2019 — the first Asian woman to reach No. 1 — and has four Grand Slam trophies to her name. Since reaching the top of the sport, the 24-year-old Osaka has become one of the faces at the intersection of mental health and sports. She has spoken out about her own struggles under the pressure of being a top-level athlete, gaining support from fans around the world.
She did not play in Wimbledon, which concluded just over a week ago, due to an Achilles injury and lost in straight sets during her last match, a round of 128 match at the French Open against American Amanda Anisimova, who will also play in San Jose.
Also in the field are six top-10-ranked players: No. 3 Maria Sakkari, No. 4 Paula Badosa, No. 5 Ons Jabeur, No.6 Aryna Sabalenka, No. 8 Danielle Collins, and No. 9 Garbiñe Muguruza, as well as Madison Keys and Bianca Andreescu.
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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