Naomi Osaka exited the Australian Open the same way she bowed out of her previous two events — retiring midmatch due to injury.
The 27-year-old Japanese star pulled out of her third-round match against Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic with a strained abdominal muscle after losing the first set 7-6 (3) on Friday in Melbourne, Australia.
“I kind of have a history of it, since I was a teenager. At least once a year, I’d get an ab strain. For me, I want to say it’s more the way my serve is — it’s quite explosive,” said Osaka, who was forced out of the final of the Auckland, New Zealand, event earlier this month with the same injury.
Osaka also stopped during her fourth-round match at her final tournament of 2024 at Beijing.
“Unfortunately, it carried on over to the beginning of this season,” Osaka said. “It was, I guess, a little inevitable, but I think the competitor in me just wanted to see it through to the end.”
Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, has struggled since returning to the tour after a prolonged break to deal with her mental health and to give birth to a daughter in 2023.
Bencic, another of the mothers on the WTA Tour, wrote a message to Osaka on the television camera following the match: “Get well soon, Mama.”
Earlier Friday, two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus extended the longest Australian Open women’s singles winning streak in more than a decade by advancing out of the third round.
Sabalenka got past Denmark’s Clara Tauson 7-6 (5), 6-4 in 2 hours, 6 minutes.
The victory was the 17th in a row for Sabalenka at the event. The last woman with a longer streak was another Belarusian, Victoria Azarenka, who won 18 in a row from 2012 to 2014, capturing the title in the first two of those years.
Sabalenka emerged with more winners (39-26) and fewer unforced errors (33-25) than Tauson in a match that featured 11 service breaks — including each of the first seven games.
Sabalenka failed to take advantage of four set points at 5-6 in the first set before prevailing in a tiebreaker. Tauson lost her serve early in the second set, then fought back to a 4-4 tie before Sabalenka took the final two games.
Tauson is ranked 42nd in the world but has never reached a Grand Slam quarterfinal.
“She put me under pressure,” Sabalenka said. “She played really great tennis under pressure, as well. It was great level from her. If she’s going to continue working, improving herself, playing the way she played today, of course, she’s going to be there (at the highest level).”
In other Friday action, No. 18 Donna Vekic of Croatia outlasted No. 12 Diana Shnaider of Russia 7-6 (4), 6-7 (3), 7-5. No. 11 Paula Badosa of Spain downed No. 17 Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine 6-4, 4-6, 6-3, and No. 27 Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia routed Germany’s Laura Siegemund 6-1, 6-2.
The evening slate Friday saw Serbia’s Olga Danilovic knock off No. 7 seed Jessica Pegula and No. 3 Coco Gauff ease past No. 30 Leylah Fernandez of Canada.
Danilovic defeated Pegula 7-6 (3), 6-1 in 90 minutes, saving all six break points she faced to reach the second week of a Grand Slam for the second time (2024 French Open). It was her third career top-10 win.
Gauff improved to 8-0 to start the season and moved into the fourth round with a 6-4, 6-2 defeat of Fernandez. It’s the third straight year she has started 8-0, the first WTA Tour player to accomplish that since Serena Williams from 2003-05.
Up next for Gauff is Bencic, the former Olympic gold medalist. They split two previous meetings.
–Field Level Media
