Naomi Osaka is rolling once more.
Twenty months into her comeback from maternity leave, Osaka is back where she wants to be, playing in the finals of a big-time tournament, riding those big, booming balls off the ground to win after win.
Wednesday night at the Canadian Open in Montreal, Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion who hasn’t won a tournament since the Australian Open in 2021, had her way with Clara Tauson of Denmark early and outslugged her late to win 6-2, 7-6(7) to make her first final of a tour event since January in New Zealand.
The only wobbles from Osaka came in the second set, when she was on the cusp of a 6-2, 5-2 lead that would have felt nearly insurmountable given how cleanly she’d been striking the ball all evening. But after a couple of errors on game points, Osaka’s first serve grew shaky and Tauson was able to smack her way back into the match. A game later, Tauson had knotted the set, and then on they went to the tiebreak.
That’s where good fortune set in for Osaka. She was a point from elimination early in this tournament. She was a point from being forced into a third set in the semifinal Wednesday night against Tauson. But Tauson cut two serves too close, missing the lines by inches, or even less, and double-faulting to allow Osaka back into the match. Osaka smacked a forehand return to earn a second match point, and Tauson whacked a second serve return into the net, giving Osaka the win.
The victory sets up an enticing final, with Osaka, one of the biggest stars in the sport, facing Victoria Mboko, the 18-year-old Canadian who appears destined for big things, maybe as soon as Thursday. Mboko charged back from a set down and saved a match point on her way to toppling Elena Rybakina in three sets and a deciding tiebreak in front of a wild Quebecois crowd in Montreal waving “Allez Vicky” signs.
It’s Mboko’s first Tour-level final of her young career. She was fighting her way through Challengers during the first months of the year. It’s Osaka’s first WTA 1000 level final since 2022, when she lost to Iga Świątek in Miami.
Osaka’s roll has once more proven the age-old cliche in tennis, that salvation might always be just one tournament and one good week away. She’d lost six of eight matches heading into the Canadian Open, six of her last eight defeats had come in three sets, with the decider either going 6-4 or 7-6 against her. One of the exceptions was a straight-sets defeat to Emma Raducanu in Washington, D.C., which precipitated her split with coach Patrick Mouratoglou, who had taken the place of Wim Fissette last fall.
In interviews and news conferences, both Osaka and Mouratoglou had given the impression that communication was at times complicated. Osaka found it difficult to share her feelings, he said; Mouratoglou might feel he was wasting his time with her, having coached someone on the level of Serena Williams, Osaka said.
Świątek’s former coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, has joined Osaka for a trial period in Canada, and so far, the new coach bounce is bouncing. Wiktorowski specializes in simplifying the game. Osaka has played simple tennis in Montreal all week. And now she’s in the finals of a big-time tournament — just where she wanted to be.
(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
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