Naomi Osaka's comeback is a rallying cry for mums at Australian Open

At this time last year, expectations were high for Naomi Osaka. It was her first Grand Slam appearance since the birth of her daughter, Shai. However, 2024 has not gone as she had hoped, a year that has “humbled” the four-time Grand Slam champion.

Despite nearly defeating eventual champion Iga Swiatek at the French Open, she has suffered early exits in several major tournaments. Nevertheless, Osaka is ambitious, setting her sights on winning another round of Grand Slam titles. Her victory over Caroline Garcia last night was a crucial first step, marking a revenge for Osaka's first-round loss to the same opponent upon her return last year.

“Obviously, being a mom has changed me a lot,” she said after her win. “I hope I can put more time and energy on the court.” Osaka is just one of a growing number of mothers returning to women's tennis after giving birth, signaling a shift in the trend of elite athletes having to retire to start families.

“More and more women are returning to elite sport after giving birth,” says Brooke McGregor, a scholar researching elite runner mothers. Researchers say Osaka and athletes like her are paving the way for the next generation of women, but these comebacks are not without challenges. Sports physiotherapist, Hologic WTA Women’s Health Task Force member, and University of Wollongong scholar Professor Deirdre McGhee says female athletes must weigh painful choices that their male counterparts do not face.

“Peak performance and peak fertility unfortunately happen at the same time,” she says. Osaka is aiming to be the first mother to win a Grand Slam in more than a decade. It is a huge feat but not unheard of. Margaret Court won three Grand Slam events as a new mother in 1973 – the Australian Open, the French Open, and the US Open. Trailblazer Evonne Goolagong Cawley won Wimbledon in 1980, the first and only mother to win the title in the Open Era. Since then, the only other mother to achieve Grand Slam glory is Kim Clijsters.

She made a historic victory at the US Open in 2009 after giving birth to her daughter, Jada, in 2008, becoming the first unseeded player to win the event. She defended her title in 2010 and went on to win the Australian Open in 2011. In fact, Clijsters was more successful at Grand Slams after having children, winning three of her four titles as a mother. Serena Williams won her last Grand Slam at the Australian Open in 2017 while pregnant with her first child. She has not won another Grand Slam since, although she came very close, reaching four Grand Slam finals.

Victoria Azarenka, who was knocked out in the first round yesterday, also came very close, reaching the US Open final in 2020, four years after the birth of her son, Leo. However, comparing new mothers and their timelines is not always productive. “Not all pregnancies and deliveries are the same,” Professor McGhee says, adding that the health of the baby can also affect a parent’s return to training. Serena Williams suffered a near-fatal pulmonary embolism and delivery complications that confined her to bed for six weeks. In contrast, Osaka started training 15 days after giving birth.

Professor McGhee says pregnancy causes changes in the abdominal wall, pelvic floor, breasts, and ligament laxity. “It's not just one part of her body that's affected, it's recovering from trauma in multiple body areas,” she says. “You wake up after having a baby… you feel like, ‘I've been hit by a bus’.” Ms. McGregor says other factors, such as a player’s age when they give birth and the timing of their return, can also impact their post-partum careers. Serena Williams was in her 30s when she had her first child; Clijsters was in her mid-20s, as is Osaka.

“Research suggests that the ability to recover and exceed previous performance levels is influenced by the relationship between the timing of pregnancy and an athlete's peak performance age,” says Ms. McGregor. Swiss player Belinda Bencic yesterday celebrated her first Grand Slam win since her maternity leave in stunning fashion, defeating 16th seed Jelena Ostapenko in straight sets. She gave birth to her daughter, Bella, last April and returned to the court six months later in October. In a recent interview with The Athletic, Bencic said she felt emboldened to embrace parenthood, inspired by those who came before her. “So far I'm happy with how the comeback is going,” she said after her win yesterday. “Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself. Now I feel like the game is easier because, yeah, there are more important things than tennis.”

While much attention is often focused on the negative impacts and physical “recovery” of returning to elite sport, Professor McGhee says there are also positives, often in terms of mental health. Other athlete mothers she has worked with have expressed similar sentiments to Bencic. “They cope better with stress, they're more resilient, they have better mental health, so they feel stronger,” she says. This appears to be the case for Ukrainian player Elina Svitolina, who had a string of inspiring wins at Wimbledon nine months after the birth of her daughter, Skai. “She doesn't care if I win or lose, she just comes for the love and the hugs,” Svitolina said in an interview last year. She says she feels calmer on the court since becoming a parent, and her game style has become more aggressive. “I feel like I came back a different player.”

American player Taylor Townsend is another mother on the tour. She celebrated a career peak last year, winning the Wimbledon doubles title, and has previously spoken about receiving advice from Williams and Clijsters on how to balance motherhood. German player Angelique Kerber made a brief comeback last year, and Caroline Wozniacki has also returned to the tour. Kerber, a former Australian Open champion, is retiring after the 2024 Paris Olympics. Since 2019, players returning from maternity leave have been able to use a protected ranking to enter a set number of tournaments, whereas when Clijsters and Williams returned, they had to enter as unseeded players.

While this innovation is welcome, researchers say more can be done to support breastfeeding and childcare, as well as sponsors taking steps to ensure players are not financially penalized for time away from the court. Tunisian player Ons Jabeur has been vocal about her desire to win a Grand Slam title, a milestone she wants to achieve before starting a family. She was devastated after losing two consecutive Wimbledon finals, saying she and her husband were “crying like babies” after the 2023 match. “That loss was very tough because it’s related to me being a mother and having a family. So it was an extra sadness for me,” Jabeur told The Guardian last year. Former Australian Open finalist Danielle Collins, who announced her retirement early last year to start a family, revealed she would continue to play after facing fertility issues. “Things didn’t go as planned,” she said.

“Dealing with endometriosis and fertility issues has been a huge challenge for many women, and I am actively working through it, but I have full faith in my team. It’s just taking longer than I had imagined,” she wrote on Instagram. Ash Barty retired at the peak of her career and started a family shortly after, and is currently pregnant with her second child. Australian Daria Saville shared a snippet of her egg-freezing process on Instagram last November, showing herself injecting medication and undergoing egg retrieval in hospital scrubs. “My sports doctor made sure all the medication I was on was not banned by anti-doping,” she said in the video.

Professor McGhee says the WTA Women’s Health Task Force provides advice on everything from supportive bras to fertility and egg freezing. “If you want to freeze your eggs, you should be doing it in your 20s, not in your 30s. How do we time that so that it doesn’t interrupt the playing schedule because it still impacts your body?” she says. Even Aryna Sabalenka, who is chasing a third consecutive Australian Open title, unexpectedly raised the topic of retirement and family plans in an interview on Sunday. “I'm 27 years old this year, oh my god,” she said, highlighting that she is nine years older than teenage prodigy Mirra Andreeva. “As a professional athlete, I'm really close to retiring, can you believe it? Twenty-seven years old. People retire at like 30.”

When asked when she would like to retire, the world number one was unsure. “I don't know, it's a tricky question. I would love to have a family, a lot of kids, I want to have kids. I don't want to have my first kid at 35, you know?” “In my head, I really want to have a kid and then come back, and I want my kid to see how hard you should work in your life to get something.” Professor McGhee says Osaka and others are “pioneers” who will help shape future advice about when to return to the court and how to train intensely. “Women like Naomi Osaka who have had children in their career and returned give other women hope and inspiration, they think, ‘well, I can do that… I don’t need to sacrifice my family for my career.’”