Naomi Osaka is back in training.
The former World No. 1 made her highly anticipated return to the WTA tour this year, having taken a hiatus to give birth to her first child in 2023.
But she was forced to wrap up her season early, announcing last month that she would be unable to compete due to a back injury.
In her 2024 comeback from maternity leave, Osaka posted a 22-17 win-loss record.
She also earned her first Top 10 victory in two years by beating Jelena Ostapenko in the first round of the US Open and notched a total of six Top 20 victories on the year.
And after starting the season unranked, Osaka currently sits at No. 60 in the WTA rankings.
Now, the four-time Grand Slam winner is preparing for a big 2025 – but had a ‘panic’ on her first day of preseason training.
Taking to Instagram, Osaka revealed that shortly before she got back on the court, she realised that her nails were too long to properly hold her tennis racket.
“Unhinged behaviour,” Osaka wrote, sharing a picture of her extensions on Instagram after cutting them off.
“The way I panicked yesterday because I knew my nails were potentially too long to hold my racket… My nail beds will never recover.”
Osaka was able to quickly put that issue behind her and got to grips with a full workout alongside her coach Patrick Mouratoglou, sharing a short clip after their first session at UCLA’s training facility.
“I’m making a video on how we’ve survived the first day of preseason,” she said.
“I’m alive, I’m very grateful.”
Osaka then posted the video on Instagram with the amusing caption: “It’s giving ‘call the ambulance.’”
The 27-year-old hired Mouratoglou as her coach back in September, after she lost in the second round of the US Open.
At the time, she admitted that she was hesitant to make the decision, as Mouratoglou was formerly the long-time coach of Serena Williams.
“The fact that he was Serena’s coach made me want to avoid him just because his persona is so big,” Osaka said.
“This isn’t rude because I found out it’s not true, but I didn’t know if he was a good coach or he coached Serena.
“Then I met him, talked to him, worked with him on the court. He absolutely is a really good coach.
“I think I’m at a stage in my life that I don’t want to have regrets.
“I’d rather pull the trigger on something and I don’t want to say ‘fail’, but I feel like I really need to learn as much as possible in this stage of my career.”
After joking that she’s happy to have survived their first day of preseason, it seems Mouratoglou is the perfect coach to get Osaka back into Grand Slam shape.