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NEW YORK, NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 04: Naomi Osaka of Japan talks to the media after losing to Amanda Anisimova of the United States in the women’s singles semifinal match on Day 12 of the US Open at USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on September 04, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Robert Prange/Getty Images)
Getty Images
If you’ve been watching this year’s U.S. Open, you’ll know that four-time major champion Naomi Osaka reached her first Grand Slam semifinal since becoming a mother. After her 6-4, 7-6(3) victory over Czech 11th seed Karolina Muchova in Wednesday’s quarterfinal, Osaka—who struggled with consistency in her game following the 2023 birth of her daughter Shai—said that she’s “really inspired by all the moms on tour.”
Osaka has also been open, in post-match interviews and in a new documentary about her postpartum career, about how she’s felt like she’s “not good enough [or] losing a race in some weird sort of way.” But she’s also said that she sees this time as a chance not for a “comeback,” but to become even stronger. “A comeback doesn’t give you any room to grow,” Osaka says in the documentary. “You’re limited to come back into what you exactly were before. I want to be a different person and I want to be a better person.”
As ForbesWomen contributor Christine Michel Carter writes in her piece about the documentary, “Osaka’s story shows that motherhood is not a detour from ambition but a redefinition of it. By sharing her struggles with postpartum depression and showing up on tennis’ biggest stages, she reframes what resilience looks like for working mothers everywhere.”
While Osaka said Wednesday that her quarterfinal victory was a “weight” off her shoulders, she has little time to rest and reflect on this resilience: She’ll face Amanda Anisimova tonight at Arthur Ashe stadium. [Editor’s note: After this newsletter was deployed on Thursday, Osaka lost to Anisimova, but she is remaining upbeat about her U.S. Open performance.]
Cheers!
Maggie McGrath
Featured Forbes List: The Cloud 100 2025
After a decade of tracking the top companies in cloud computing, one thing is certain: Artificial intelligence has taken over. Generative AI’s fingerprints are all over this year’s Cloud 100 list, from model-training frontier labs to companies in health, law, customer service and more — all trying to remake themselves in the image of AI. As with other tech-focused lists, men dominate the rankings, but among the female-led companies on the 2025 list are Canva (whose CEO and cofounder is Melanie Perkins) and Papaya Global, whose CEO and cofounder is Eynat Guez, the first female CEO to lead a unicorn tech startup in Israel.
ICYMI: News Of The Week
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 12: Chloe Malle attends W Magazine 50th Anniversary presented By Lexus at Shun Lee on October 12, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for W Magazine)
Getty Images for W Magazine
On Tuesday Vogue announced that Chloe Malle will take the reigns as its new Head of Editorial Content. Malle, the daughter of Candice Bergen and French filmmaker Louis Malle, is a well-known Vogue insider, having joined in 2011 as a social editor before being promoted to contributing editor in 2016; most recently, she was the editor of Vogue.com. Malle faces a fickle landscape, writes ForbesWomen contributor Gemma Allen: “She must guide Vogue from its print-soaked legacy into a digital era defined by TikTok trends, influencer microcultures, and shrinking attention spans, in an economy where attention is the survivalist currency.”
A major transition has taken place at the world’s largest mozzarella maker, Denver-based Leprino, following the recent death of reclusive billionaire James Leprino at 87. Leprino’s daughters and longtime board directors Terry Leprino, 65, and Gina Vecchiarelli, 62, are now the main owners of the $3.6 billion (estimated annual revenue) cheese business, which manufactures and sells more than 1 billion pounds of cheese annually and supplies cheese to Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s and other pizza brands.
Shares of American Eagle soared as trading opened Thursday after the retailer boasted the success of its controversial ads featuring Sydney Sweeney while reporting second-quarter earnings that surpassed Wall Street’s expectations. CEO Jay Schottenstein said in a statement the company was “fueled” by the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sweeney, including an “uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.” (Ed. note: The rebuttal ad from Gap featuring girlgroup Katseye and killer choreo from Robbie Blue is… worth your time.)
In a summer without a clear “song of the summer” breakout hit, TikTok has declared a 10-year-old pop track from English singer-songwriter Jess Glynne as the title holder thanks to the “Jet2holiday” trend on the app that took off in June. TikTok said Thursday that “Hold My Hand” has been used over 9 million times on videos that have garnered 80 billion views. (And if you’ve missed the boat on this trend, fear not: we’ve got you covered with this explainer.)
Speaking of trusted Forbes explainers and coverage… if you’ll forgive this bit of company promotion, we wanted to share with you a new way you can ensure Forbes stories are at the top of your Google search results. The web giant recently introduced a new feature called Preferred Sources, which lets you customize your top stories with publishers you trust and enjoy. Here’s how to make to make Forbes one of your preferred sources on Google!
The Checklist
1. Forget the 5AM club. Screenshots of 5AM wake-ups, cold plunges, and “hustle and grind” reels have turned into a competitive sport (also sometimes known as fauxductivity). This, however, can lead to burnout—especially if you’re not a naturally early riser.
2. Pivot, pivot… PIVOT! Did we include this story just to make our favorite Friends reference? Yes. But if you’re fearing a big career overhaul in spite of wanting one, are there things you can do to jump into better action? Also yes—in fact, here’s a six-step playbook for making a change in your career.
3. Avoid AI-induced chaos at work. Anahita Tafvizi, Snowflake’s Chief Data and Analytics Officer, joined ForbesWomen editor Maggie McGrath for a CxO Spotlight discussion about how she’s steering Snowflake’s data and analytics strategy in the AI age and why building AI models that don’t understand basic human semantics can induce chaos in the workplace.
The Quiz
A celebrity seen wearing a certain designer or piece of jewelry has always been a tacit endorsement of that company’s brand, and especially for a smaller business, it can be a serious boost. Naomi Osaka’s bedazzled versions of a popular toy drove 50% more Instagram followers to the studio that created them. What toy was it?
Pokémon cards
Labubus
Funko Pops
Tennis player Barbie
Check your answer.
AloJapan.com