Naomi Osaka is a four-time Grand Slam winner whose triumphs have all come on the hard courts of Melbourne Park and Flushing Meadows.
Lately, she’s been proving that her devastating game and champion’s mentality translate well to the game’s ‘natural’ surfaces of clay and grass.
“I just always in my head considered myself a hardcourt player,” she revealed after her first-round win at Wimbledon this week. “I tried to expand my mind a little bit this year with the claycourt season and then coming into this [grass swing] with [coach] Tomasz [Wiktorowski].”
On Friday, the 28-year-old notched the best Wimbledon result of her career, overwhelming Daria Kasatkina in just 65 minutes on No.1 Court. Her 6-1 6-3 victory propelled her into the second week at the All England Club for the first time, and she is yet to drop a set in three matches at this year’s event.
Her breakthrough at the grasscourt major – hot on the heels of reaching her first tour-level final on grass in Bad Homburg – comes just weeks after she reached the same stage on the clay of Roland Garros, another career-best showing.
Osaka’s combined win-loss record of 14-4 on clay and grass in 2026 is now, by far, the best of any season in her career.
Osaka's tour-level main-draw wins on clay and grass
*In a COVID-affected season with no grass events, Osaka did not play the rescheduled claycourt events after her US Open victory.
**missed the 2023 season due to pregnancy
And she could improve it still when she faces world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka on Sunday for a place in the quarterfinals.
Osaka credits her improved level on grass to the work she has done with Wiktorowski, with whom she teamed with around this time last year.
“I would say he challenges me a lot to think outside the box,” she explained. “Coming into this grass season, we were doing a lot of things on the hard court because where I train, they don't have a grass court.
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“It's kind of made me, like, understand grasscourt tennis a lot more. Tomasz is doing a lot of really weird, like, drills that I have to come forward. I was never one that was too comfortable coming forward. It forced me to see the ball or see the speed of the ball. It's just a bunch of different training drills that made my mind more aware on the depth of the ball and things like that.
“I think when I was younger, I was a little bit more stubborn on how I wanted to play on this surface, but I realise it's a lot more free-flowing.”
There was a period during which Osaka did not play on grass at all. When she entered the 2024 s-Hertogenbosch event as a wildcard, it was her first grasscourt match in five years.
Her absence from grass was explored in Ben Rothenberg’s biography Naomi Osaka, where after withdrawing from Wimbledon for the second year running in 2022 it was revealed she lacked confidence in her footing on grass after rehabbing an injury.
“Missing Wimbledon once more increased [former coach Wim] Fissette’s frustration with what he saw as Naomi’s growing aversion to playing outside of hard courts,” Rothenberg wrote, before quoting Fissette: “If you see the last four years, she almost didn’t play on the grass or clay courts; it was only going to get more difficult in the future.”
Osaka’s remarkable turnaround on the natural surfaces can also be attributed to rediscovering trust in her movement in the aftermath of giving birth to daughter Shai in 2023.
And this is significant, given the movement patterns on clay and grass are perhaps more specific than what’s required for success on hard courts.
“The exact moment was when I lost [to Emma Raducanu] in DC last year. I remember thinking I lost this match, but I feel like I could move again,” she said. “I felt like a significant click. It took way longer than I thought it was going to take.
“Ever since then, I've felt like I've been moving OK. I got injured at the start of the year. But the clay season, the movement has been pretty good. I think I'm doing okay or decent on [this] surface, too.”
Osaka’s game, theoretically, should translate well to all surfaces, and it has been in 2026.
It makes particular sense on grass, where her huge serve, powerfully-struck flat groundstrokes, compact swings and ability to get low all seem a perfect fit.
Confidence in her movement seemed the missing piece, and with that intact, she has been soaring on the All England Club’s lawns.
In her three wins so far she’s struck 88 winners against 47 unforced errors, an impressive positive differential of +41. Among those winners were 20 aces, offset by just four double faults.
“For sure, when I'm playing my opponents on grass, I do feel like … my game does give me a little bit of benefits,” she said after beating Anastasia Gasanova in round two.
Now, however, the degree of difficulty rachets up for Osaka when she faces Sabalenka, who has won all three of their matches in 2026, including at Roland Garros.
Sabalenka has also won four major titles, all since Osaka won her last at Australian Open 2021.
The top seed will go in as the favourite, but Osaka knows she can do damage.
“Obviously I've been doing really well on grass this year. My confidence is pretty high. I know what my grasscourt tennis looks like. It gives me a pretty stable mindset going into the match,” she said.
“If I look at my results, I have only lost to like her and Iga [Swiatek] for the past couple months. Hey, I'll take that. Also, she's the No.1 player in the world. If there is someone I had to lose to, I would pick that ranking position.
“If anything, I would say I learned from all of those matches, so hopefully I can apply [those lessons].”