The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 U.S. Open men’s semifinals.
FLUSHING MEADOWS, N.Y. — Naomi Osaka is going deep again.
Osaka, the four-time Grand Slam champion who has been in something of a tennis wilderness the past three years, is back in the U.S. Open semifinals. She beat No. 11 seed Karolína Muchová 6-4, 7-6(3) in a pulsating match, which riveted even as Muchová played essentially on one leg.
The match was the latest exclamation point for Osaka’s long and short journey back to the biggest matches on the brightest stages. It began nearly two years ago, but went from 35 miles per hour to 90 only in the past month.
“I learned I loved tennis way more than I thought I did, and I learned that, you know, I actually really love challenges,” said Osaka in her news conference, who earlier this year questioned how long she would keep at the comeback without getting the results she wanted.
“It’s like a video game. You pick it up, and even if you lose a level, you kind of just restart and keep going until you eventually win. I think it’s a little tough at some times, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” she said.
Not now, at least, even after Muchová had delivered her one wild test on a crisp, clear night in front of yet another capacity crowd on Arthur Ashe Stadium, just as Osaka likes it.
Muchová, of the Czech Republic, is one of the game’s ultimate craftswomen; Osaka is one of its ultimate ballstrikers. Together, they produced the most captivating tennis the biggest court in the sport has seen all tournament. Even with Muchová hampered by a left-thigh injury, they showcased what makes their games distinctive while also throwing into relief the skills each appears to have borrowed from the other.
Having received treatment for numerous injuries during the tournament, Muchová left the court for a medical timeout between sets. She returned with heavy strapping around her left thigh. She broke Osaka in the first game of the second set, but by the end of the next game, she could barely shift directions, struggling to push into shots to make solid contact. After a brief interlude, she returned to pushing Osaka off balance with her changes of direction and injections of pace. But Osaka, now unconcerned with the idea she has to hit a winner to win the point, absorbed it all.
Osaka had prevailed in the first set by hitting to big spots, using the efficient power game she has been showcasing for much of the past month. Gone are the wild swings that sent balls flying outside the lines. So is the hesitation, the concern for consequence, and the mid-match questioning of how she is supposed to play.
Working with Tomasz Wiktorowski, Iga Świątek’s coach for four of her first five Grand Slam titles, she has gone past the “new coach bounce.” She has arrived on court intent on taking charge of points the way she once did, dictating them from just behind the baseline, before seeing the opportunity to step in and put the ball away. This is what she was doing six years ago, when she became world No. 1 and won four major titles in four seasons.
Now, though, she has another weapon: she can really move. Maybe not as well as Coco Gauff and Świątek, but well enough to adapt her once stationary power to the modern game. When Osaka was first ascendant, keeping her toes on the hashmark at the baseline was enough. Now, tennis is built for players with straight-up speed and the ability to switch direction like pinballs bouncing off bumpers.
An injury to Karolína Muchová’s left thigh prevented her from displaying her full range of tennis in the second set. (Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
Muchová, whose movement dulled as the match wore on because of her injuries, threw every trick she had at Osaka: lobs, drop shots, power to the corners. She came in, trying to end points early; she stayed back, trying to maneuver Osaka out of the blue and into the green. More often than not, Osaka had answers for all of it, whizzing around Arthur Ashe Stadium as she never used to, then rolling winners past the limping Czech. Osaka, who has rediscovered her big-point superpower the past few weeks, edged the opener 6-4, breaking serve while holding a 5-4 lead.
This was a far cry from a year ago, when Muchová and Osaka played each other in the second round and Muchová plotted Osaka’s movements around the court for her, opening up space, then using her touch to drop the ball into it. That used to be the book on Osaka; it might now be out of print. Even as she lost a point deep in the second set, scuttling all over the court and narrowly missing a close-to-impossible pass in the net, she showed the frustration of someone used to winning those exchanges, which, in the grand scheme of tennis, she is not. She might be now.
Even with Muchová so clearly struggling, Osaka faced some weird jeopardy down the stretch. She started trying to end points earlier, showing off the fact that despite being such a textured player, she can hit a frozen-rope groundstroke as well as anybody else. Osaka started to aim the ball to small margins and began to miss her targets. But she realized her mistake in time and began hitting to big spots once more. Even as Muchová forced things into a tiebreak, Osaka stayed steady and moved her left and right until the right opening came.
There is an odd statistic connected to Osaka that means everything or nothing. Every time she has made the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam, she has won it.
For Osaka believers, it proves once she gets on a roll and gains belief in herself and her strokes, she can’t be beat. Doubters argue that in the eight years since she first became a threat to the top of the sport, Osaka has made the quarterfinals of the most important tournaments four times, suggesting a level of inconsistency that is hard to predict.
Both things might be true.
“In the past maybe I got distracted and I could maybe pull it in on the third set,” she said. “I’m definitely a lot more focused and aware of point structure, and also how important it is to try and conserve energy if you can.”
The way Osaka has played the Grand Slams since her 2024 return from giving birth to her first child, only the most assured of the Osaka faithful would have believed she had another run like this in her. Just in August, Victoria Mboko, an 18-year-old Canadian, cruised past her in the final of the Canadian Open after Osaka had built a one-set lead. She could barely contain her emotions on the court and left it in a daze at what had happened, inadvertently forgetting to congratulate Mboko in her on-court speech.
The loss behind her, she decided to embrace gratitude, setting being happy on the court as her goal for a tournament she ruled not so long ago, regardless of the results. So far, the results have been stellar, and she is back in a Grand Slam semifinal for the first time since Australia in 2021.
She’s happy about that, too.
“I appreciate the journey a lot more now,” she said, remembering that when she was younger she was just always thinking about the next match or tournament. “I’ll probably tell you how much I appreciate it at the end of the tournament, which is hopefully on Saturday for me, but regardless, I’m just really grateful to be playing well in this city.”
(Top photo of Naomi Osaka: Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)