Naomi Osaka offered a glimpse of her injury days after her Wimbledon campaign ended with a quarterfinal loss to Karolina Muchova on Tuesday.
Osaka enjoyed her best run at Wimbledon this year, but it came to an end after a 7-6(4), 6-4 defeat to Muchova. The loss came just one match after she upset World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka. Following the match, the Japanese player admitted that plantar fasciitis may have affected her performance.
She first developed the condition last year, and it resurfaced during this year’s grass-court season. The issue also forced her to withdraw from the final of the Bad Homburg Open ahead of Wimbledon. Shortly after her upset, she posted an update of her feet wrapped up in medical tape on her Instagram story. Referring to the injury, she wrote:
“S/o my feet, you held on the best you could🫠”
Osaka opened her Wimbledon campaign on June 29 with a 6-1, 7-5 victory over Elsa Jacquemot. This win was followed by triumphs over Anastasia Gasanova, Daria Kasatkina, and Sabalenka to reach the quarterfinals.
Naomi Osaka reflected on her quarterfinal loss at Wimbledon
After falling to Karolina Muchova in the Wimbledon quarterfinals, Naomi Osaka opened up about the match during her press conference. Calling it a “tough” match, she said that she would focus on the positives from the tournament.
“I mean, it was a really tough match for me, but I think I can try to find positives in that, and that’s kind of my mindset. I mean, tournament as a whole, it’s the furthest I’ve gotten here. So, for me, that’s a positive. Obviously, I would have loved to get a lot farther. But as of today, like if I think about my match today, it’s really hard for me to immediately think of something positive,” said Naomi Osaka.
She added:
“I feel like it’s hard ’cause I played so well in my last match, and then today I just feel like I didn’t play well at all and I didn’t have any energy. So, I mean, the score was pretty good for what it was.”
Talking about her plantar fasciitis, she further added:
“It’s not my ankle. I’m just getting old, so like I have like planter fasciitis on my feet. Well, that’s like what we assume it is. But no, that happened in Germany, so it’s never my ankles. I actually have really flexible ankles.”
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