Naomi Osaka revealed she has been battling an illness since Christmas Eve and said it \u201csucks\u201d as a way to start her 2026 season.<\/p>\n
Osaka was defeated 6-4, 6-2 by World No.52 Maria Sakkari to kick off her United Cup but was in a surprisingly reflective mood afterwards, suggesting there was plenty of positives to take.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly I thought it wasn\u2019t a bad first match for what it was. I\u2019m I guess just thankful that I have another match that I get to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just, like, trying new things. For me, I feel like I definitely could have been more aggressive on the returns. I think I did that a little bit towards the end. But learning not to be afraid of mistakes and kind of just going for it from the beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen also just trying not to be so predictable, which is something that I knew about myself since US Open. Again, I\u2019m kind of afraid to make mistakes. So just trying to, like, break that limitation in my mind.\u201d<\/p>\n
She did though reveal she has been battling an illness and was seen coughing during the match. Osaka said she has had the problem since Christmas Eve and it \u201csucks\u201d to be carrying that into the new year.<\/p>\n
MORE NEWS ON T365<\/strong><\/p>\n Emma Raducanu names 2026 goal ahead of first major tournament<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Aryna Sabalenka calls for Nick Kyrgios \u2018Battle of the Sexes\u2019 rematch \u2013 but with one rule change<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not operating at the percent that I want to be operating at, which kind of sucks because, like, I had a really good off-season so I thought I was going to do really well here. Then I got really sick. I think I\u2019m at the tail end of that, but still not amazing.<\/p>\n \u201cSo yeah, I feel like for me, I\u2019m just trying to get better every day. Obviously I had a cough, like a runny nose, like all that nasty stuff, yeah. Hopefully it goes away before the Australian Open.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, it\u2019s been a minute, which is why I\u2019m shocked that I still have it. I think I got it from my daughter (smiling). I want to say like before Christmas Eve.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been tough. Also for me, that\u2019s why I also really appreciate being here because you feel the team atmosphere, it makes you want to go out and do your best and do something.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel very apologetic that I couldn\u2019t get the win. I don\u2019t know, we\u2019re all here to try our best. If it doesn\u2019t work out, it sucks, but we\u2019re going to just try again another day.\u201d<\/p>\n Read next: Novak Djokovic\u2019s ex-rival makes \u2018given up\u2019 claim about the Serb challenging Alcaraz & Sinner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Naomi Osaka reveals illness after surprise loss to World No.52 in the United Cup<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Naomi Osaka revealed she has been battling an illness since Christmas Eve and said it \u201csucks\u201d as a way to start her 2026 season. Osaka was defeated 6-4, 6-2 by World No.52 Maria Sakkari to kick off her United Cup but was in a surprisingly reflective mood afterwards, suggesting there was plenty of positives to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}