Naomi Osaka stopped play due to injury against Belinda Bencic

MELBOURNE, Australia — Two-time Australian Open champion Naomi Osaka stopped play with a strained stomach muscle after dropping the opening set of her third-round match against Belinda Bencic.

“I have a history, since I was a teenager. At least once a year, I like to get an ab strain. For me, I’d say it’s more than my serve – it’s quite explosive,” Osaka said, adding that she suffered the injury at a tournament in Beijing, where she retired from a match against Coco Goff on Oct. 1. “Unfortunately, it went away earlier this season. .”

It is Osaka’s first run to the third round at a major tournament since 2022. She missed time in recent seasons due to a mental-health break, then pulled out of the tour while pregnant. His daughter Shai was born in July 2023.

Osaka began on 5 January 2025 by reaching the final of a tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, but withdrew from the title match there due to an abdominal injury.

Then, she said, the problem got “much worse” after her second-round win over 2023 French Open finalist Karolina Muchova in Melbourne.

“It was, I guess, a little bit inevitable, but I think my competitor just wanted to see it through,” Osaka said. “I just hope I can figure it out and figure out how to get healthy in time” before the tour begins in Indian Wells and Miami in March.

Osaka – a former No. 1-ranked player who owns a total of four Grand Slam titles – was visited by a trainer as she led 6-5. The coach checked Osaka’s stomach and gave him a pill and resumed the game.

Just before the tiebreaker began, Osaka went to his courtside coach’s box and spoke briefly with Patrick Muratoglu.

After Bencic claimed the tiebreaker at 7–6 (3), taking four of the last five points through Osaka’s unforced errors, the chair umpire declared the match over after 57 minutes, “due to injury.”

The two players hugged on the sideline and Osaka left the court. He won the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021 and the US Open in 2018 and 2020.

“Hopefully he will recover soon and play the rest of the season,” said Bencic, who won a singles gold medal for Switzerland at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Bencic, who is a mother, drew a heart on courtside TV camera lenses and wrote: “Get well soon mum.”

Bencic next has a fourth-round matchup against 2023 US Open champion Coco Gough.

Bencic, who returned to action last October after the birth of her first child, has failed to get past the fourth round in 11 past appearances at Melbourne Park. She lost at that stage a year ago to two-time champion Aryna Sabalenka.