Sports

Naomi Osaka’s Australian Open and the rediscovery of a tennis superpower

Published

1 year ago

January 16, 2025

Naomi Osaka’s Australian Open and the rediscovery of a tennis superpower

MELBOURNE, Australia — For Naomi Osaka, this journey to the other side of the world is starting to become a rollercoaster ride for the ages.

The new year had all started so right, with a run to the final in Auckland, New Zealand. But then, a set up and with her first tournament title since becoming a mother in sight, she had to pull out against Clara Tauson with an injury.

The scans were “not great” in her words, a suboptimal development just a few days before the start of the Australian Open.

A few days later, the fires in Los Angeles arrived. The flames came within a few blocks of her home. She called a friend and asked her to collect her daughter’s birth certificate.

Monday night in Melbourne, back at her favorite Grand Slam, brought a tight, hard-fought win over Caroline Garcia of France, who had knocked her out in the first round here last year. Osaka had been up, then down, then somehow up at the end.

Then came Wednesday afternoon against Karolina Muchova, a microcosm of the whole journey, and another sweet ending.

Just when Osaka’s second or perhaps third tennis act looked set to take another frustrating and all-too familiar turn, she stormed back to beat Muchova, 1-6, 6-1, 6-3 in her biggest win since she became a mother in the summer of 2023. It means she will play her first third-round match at a Grand Slam since the 2022 Australian Open.

Muchova, the No. 20 seed in Melbourne, is an ascendant and gifted star who rose when Osaka was on the sidelines. She has the kind of all-court game that has become increasingly vital at the top of women’s tennis. Osaka, with her power baseline attack, hadn’t been able to solve it. At the U.S. Open in August, Muchova sliced and volleyed Osaka onto the next flight home from New York.

“She crushed me when I had my best outfit ever,” Osaka said on court. “She’s one of the best players out there.”

Osaka appears to have plenty going for her a year and a half on from giving birth to her daughter, Shai. A new and accomplished coach sitting courtside, in Patrick Moratoglou. A new dose of confidence from her first appearance in a final in nearly two years, and then Monday’s win over Garcia. The fist pumps and slaps of the left thigh between points have fresh vigour. She has shown flashes of her past self as a four-time Grand Slam champion in flickering moments, but now she has the luminous quality of a player honed for the present and for what is to come.

“With every match, she’s better,” Muchova said of Osaka.

“She’s played great matches here in Australia. I played even better at the start. I didn’t let her play the game. Then it switched.”

On day four of the first major of 2025, Osaka struggled to find answers for Muchova’s all-court attack from the start. She was down 5-0 after about 20 minutes, despite getting her chances to break Muchova’s serve in a couple of games. The set was gone after half an hour.

When the set ended, Osaka told herself to believe. In her best years, she had a distinct superpower. She played her best tennis at the most crucial moment. She always seemed to come up with a huge serve down the T, a torrid forehand within inches of the baseline or a backhand screeching down the sideline when she needed them most.

That has mostly been missing during the 13 months of this comeback. For stretches she has seemed like she can hang with the best players of this new, post-Serena Williams era. Then the big moment comes, and she can’t.

Osaka said after her first match that she has struggled with losing her focus during matches. She is not a confrontational person, she said, but her job is to fight other people, like a boxer but without the punching.

“It takes a lot of energy for me to know that I’m going to go fight against somebody,” she said.

“For me, that’s what my focus is. Obviously once it’s there, like, I say c’mon a lot and I’m yelling. It’s almost like I’m a different person. Up until it gets to that point, I overthink a little bit.

The fires have only made focusing more challenging.

“I’m not there, so I don’t know how bad it is or how bad it’s going to get,” she said.

For long enough on Wednesday afternoon, she was able to clear her mind and rediscover that essential superpower. She knew the score was ugly but she told herself she’d been just a few points away from making it close.

“I told myself, ‘Okay, you’re kind of on your way out, but you’re going to try to put your foot in the door,’” she said.

“I told myself to just swing, because that’s my game. I can’t be hesitant and allow her to push me around the court. I also tried to think that way with my serve, as well.”

Osaka got her teeth into the match early in the second set, lacing a series of deep, down-the-line backhands that sent Muchova sideways and backwards while finding the kind of groove on her first serve that sends every player’s spirits rising.

Naomi Osaka roared again and again on Wednesday in Melbourne. (Hannah Peters / Getty Images)

The power kept Muchova in the back of the court, unable to float forward and stick point-ending volleys as she does better than anyone in the game. Here was Osaka, the bully of old, sending her opponent scrambling every which way, stretching for serves, overmatched and unable to breathe.

Onto the third set they went. Now it was Muchova’s turn to try to lift her game to Osaka’s level, or maybe a click higher. She couldn’t.

Osaka got the decisive break points in the fifth game with a one-two punch from the title-winning years: a ripped cross-court forehand and then a backhand pass down the line. On the crucial point, she produced a deep backhand that Muchova could only block back wide.

Four games later, Osaka once more bullied her way to three match points. Muchova blasted away return winners to save two of them, but on the third Osaka dug the ball out with a looping lob that floated — perhaps with a little bit of fortune — onto the baseline. Muchova tried an over-her-head lob that went wide and Osaka bounced with joy.

The win gave her just what she was looking for. She has said she wants to play more this year than she did in 2024, but she also isn’t going to hang around if, as she put it earlier in her comeback, the results aren’t resulting. Belinda Bencic, another player returning to the WTA Tour after giving birth, is next.

“I have a lot of respect for all the players on tour, but the point of my life that I’m at right now, if I’m not above a certain ranking, I don’t see myself playing for a while,” she told reporters during the ASB Classic.

“I’d rather spend time with my daughter if I’m not where I think I should be and where I feel like I can be.”

Last year Osaka’s goal was to climb back into the top 20, or at the very least, the top 32, so she would be seeded at Grand Slams and not have to face the top players in the early rounds. She finished last year at No. 58, well below both goals, and she had to cut short her season after retiring from the China Open when locked at 1-1 against Coco Gauff.

She started this season strong, and could have looked at her time in the Australian summer as progress even if she had lost to Muchova again. Osaka was better than Garcia, who was playing her first match after a three-month mental health break. She wasn’t better than her here a year ago.

Muchova is as talented as anyone, able to beat any top player on any given day. There would have been no shame in losing to her after a run of horrible draws at Grand Slams, including a rising Emma Navarro at Wimbledon and Iga Swiatek at the French Open.

But there is the old Bill Parcells line that basically every athlete who grows up in America is well familiar with. According to the former New York Giants coach, “you are what your record says you are.”

She’s been nearly unbeatable since the start of the season. That’s what her record says she is.

(Top photo: Asanka Brendon Ratnayake / Associated Press)

Sports

Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

Published

2 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

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Mixed martial arts legend Jon Jones ended his retirement from UFC simply because he wanted a spot on the “Freedom 250” fight card at the White House in June.

But, when UFC CEO Dana White announced the card during UFC 326 this past weekend, Jones wasn’t among the fighters. As a result, he has requested a release from his UFC contract.

White was candid when asked about Jones following the UFC 326 card.

Jon Jones of the United States of America reacts after his TKO victory against Stipe Miocic of the United States of America in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images))

“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousands times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White explained, per CBS Sports. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips – that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have a hip replacement.”

White added that “the Jon Jones thing is bulls—,” saying that he texted the fighter’s lawyer saying he would never be on the White House card despite Jones saying he was in negotiations for it.

UFC ANNOUNCES CARD FOR WHITE HOUSE EVENT

The Meta Glasses incident White is referring to came from a viral video, where Jones, unaware he was being filmed, discussed issues with his hips to a fan.

On Monday, Jones composed a thorough response to White’s comments about him and the White House Card. He previously posted and deleted social media explanations, but Monday’s appeared to be his final statement on the matter.

UFC President Dana White speaks after UFC Fight Night at Toyota Center on Feb. 21, 2026. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)

“Yes, I have arthritis in my hip and it’s painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Jones, who retired a heavyweight champion in 2025, said. “So let me get this straight, if I had accepted the lowball offer, suddenly my hip would be fine and I’d be on the White House card? That doesn’t make sense. I even received stem cell treatment last week to get ready for the White House card, and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready.

“I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren’t true isn’t right. After everything I’ve given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I’m ‘done’ is disappointing. Especially when as recently as Friday UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number.”

Jones finished his statement by saying he “respectfully” asks to be released from his UFC contract.

Jon Jones enters the ring before facing Stipe Miocic in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City, New York. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

“No more spins, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what’s up,” he wrote.

The UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.

Jones is considered one of the best UFC fighters of all time, owning a 28-1-1 record, which includes his last bout with Stipe Miocic, knocking him out to take the heavyweight title belt. He is also a two-time light heavyweight champion.

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Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.

Sports

With U.S. at war with Iran, political upheaval could engulf World Cup

Published

3 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

With U.S. at war with Iran, political upheaval could engulf World Cup

Twelve days ago the U.S., a World Cup host country, launched a full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, a country that has qualified to play in the tournament. That’s never happened before.

Five days later, that same World Cup host began military operations inside the borders of Ecuador, another World Cup qualifier, half a world away. That’s never happened before either.

With the tournament scheduled to kick off in three months, those events have soccer scholar Jonathan Wilson questioning whether it’s wise for the World Cup to go on at all.

“It seems to me, for each passing day, it’s less and less likely that the World Cup can happen,” he said.

That take seems unduly alarmist said David Goldblatt, a British sportswriter and sociologist who is a visiting professor at Pitzer College in Claremont. Anything short of a full-scale war inside the U.S. would not be enough to pull the plug on the tournament now, he said. Especially with FIFA expecting revenues of as much as $11 billion.

“I mean, it’s not a good look,” Goldblatt conceded. “And certainly when set against FIFA’s official pronouncements on its role in encouraging world peace and cosmopolitan celebrations of a universal humanity, none of that sits terribly easily.

“But in terms of actually running the World Cup, I don’t think it’s going to make very much difference at all.”

However, with the Trump administration open to engaging in more international conflicts, there’s little doubt this World Cup, the largest and most complex in history, will also be the most political in history as well.

Complicating things further is the fact the current conflict in the Middle East hasn’t been limited to just the U.S. and Iran. Iranian missiles have hit both Qatar and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, and Jordan has fired on U.S. assets.

Those three countries are World Cup qualifiers as well.

The fate of a soccer tournament pales in importance to the death and destruction the conflagration in the Middle East has produced, of course. But the need for unity is the very reason there’s a World Cup in the first place.

When French soccer administrator Jules Rimet founded the tournament 96 years ago, he believed soccer could be a tool for international peace. And in the early years of the tournament, Rimet, FIFA’s longest-serving president and a talented diplomat, was able to limit the impact of geopolitics on the World Cup, watering down Mussolini’s influence on the 1934 World Cup, for example, and steering the 1938 tournament away from Hitler’s Germany.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has taken a far different approach, courting President Donald Trump’s support despite his growing number of global conflicts.

A week before bombs began falling on Iran, Infantino appeared at the inaugural meeting of Trump’s Board of Peace wearing a red cap with ‘USA’ on the front and the numbers ‘45-47’ — a reference to Trump’s non-consecutive presidencies. That act was so blatantly partisan, IOC president Kirsty Coventry said her organization would investigate whether Infantino, an IOC member, breached the terms of the group’s charter, which requires members to act independent of political interests.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino holds up a USA hat as he attends the inaugural meeting for the Board of Peace at the Institute of Peace in Washington on Feb. 19.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

“Infantino has absolutely breached every FIFA protocol on neutrality,” said Wilson, author of “The Power and Glory: The History of the World Cup.”

“Absolute neutrality is always impossible and not desirable, but it has clearly gone way, way, way beyond. The peace prize looked grotesque at the time. It looks even worse now. And I can’t see how the future will look kindly on Infantino. I think Infantino has to some extent legitimized Trump.”

This is hardly new behavior from Infantino, who had close relationships with Vladimir Putin ahead of the 2018 tournament played in Russia and Qatar’s leaders ahead of the 2022 tournament despite their well-known human rights violations.

The list of countries Infantino is asking to overlook poor relations with the country hosting the majority of World Cup games this summer is growing.

Consider that Denmark, which administers Greenland, an autonomous territory Trump has also threatened to invade, can qualify for the tournament in a European playoff that will take place later this month. Then there’s World Cup qualifiers Haiti, Ivory Coast and Senegal, who aren’t at war with the U.S. but whose citizens have been banned from entering the country to cheer for their teams. That completely contradicts a promise from Infantino, who said “everybody will be welcome” at the 2026 World Cup.

“If I had a crystal ball I could tell you now what is going to happen,” Heimo Schirgi, the World Cup chief operating officer for FIFA, said Monday. “But obviously the situation is developing. It’s changing day by day and we are monitoring closely. [But] the World Cup will go on right? The World Cup is too big and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”

Goldblatt, the Pitzer professor, said Infantino’s action are understandable since he has few cards to play against Trump.

President Trump speaks as he receives the FIFA Peace Prize while FIFA president Gianni Infantino applauds Friday.

“What’s Infantino going to do? What levers can you pull?” he asked. “You can threaten to take it away. That’s not happening. Moral admonishment? Who’s going to take that from FIFA? It is a farcical idea that anybody thinks that the president of FIFA has any kind of collective moral authority or any role as a spokesperson for the progressive part of the world.

“They may fantasize that this is the case. But it is morally and politically absurd that any of us should expect that of these people. So if you are Infantino and that is the case, you know what works with Trump? What works is flattery. So of course he’s gone down that path.”

The games, Goldblatt said, will go on even if bombs are still falling. And that may not be an entirely bad thing.

“Football’s a great distraction. That’s partly why it’s so popular,” he said. “It will be virtually impossible, if the war continues, for that not to be a central element of like, the meaning and the purpose of what we’re all doing here.

“How we’ll feel and what it will look like, I don’t know. It will be very strange. Football is unpredictable and extraordinary. Something will happen that will warm our souls.”

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

Sports

Australia grants asylum to 5 Iranian women’s soccer players amid Iran conflict

Published

15 hours ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Australia grants asylum to 5 Iranian women’s soccer players amid Iran conflict

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Australia granted asylum to five players from the Iranian women’s soccer team who were visiting for a tournament when the U.S.-Israeli attacks against Iran began.

Australian federal police officers on Tuesday transported the five women from their hotel in Gold Coast, Australia, to a “safe location” after they made asylum requests to meet with Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and to finalize the processing of their humanitarian visas.

“Last night I was able to tell five women from the Iranian Women’s Soccer team that they are welcome to stay in Australia, to be safe and have a home here,” Burke said on X.

The move comes after the team refused to sing the Iranian anthem before their first Women’s Asian Cup match early last week against South Korea, although they later sang and saluted the anthem in two subsequent matches, including ahead of their final match, when they were eliminated by the Philippines.

IRANIAN WOMEN’S SOCCER FANS SHOW SUPPORT FOR TRUMP AS TEAM APPEARS TO PIVOT ON NATIONAL ANTHEM STANCE

Australian Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke poses with five Iranian women soccer players who have been granted asylum in Australia, Tuesday, March 10, 2026. (Australia Ministry of Home Affairs)

“I don’t want to begin to imagine how difficult that decision is for each of the individual women, but certainly last night it was joy, it was relief,” Burke told reporters after signing the documents. “People were very excited about embarking on a life in Australia.”

The five women said they were happy for their names and pictures to be published, according to Burke, who emphasized that the players wanted to make clear that they were not political activists.

The Iranian team arrived in Australia for the tournament before the war against Iran began on Feb. 28.

After the team was eliminated from the tournament over the weekend, they faced potentially returning to a country still under bombardment. The team’s head coach, Marziyeh Jafari, said on Sunday the players “want to come back to Iran as soon as we can.”

An official squad list named 26 players, as well as Jafari and other coaches.

While only five players were granted asylum, Burke said the offer was given to everyone on the team.

IRAN FLAG REMOVED FROM PARALYMPICS OPENING CEREMONY AFTER SOLE ATHLETE WITHDRAWS OVER TRAVEL SAFETY CONCERNS

Iran players during their national anthem ahead of the Women’s Asian Cup soccer match between Iran and the Philippines in Robina, Australia, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Dave Hunt/AAPImage via AP)

“These women are tremendously popular in Australia, but we realize they are in a terribly difficult situation with the decisions that they’re making,” Burke said. “The opportunity will continue to be there for them to talk to Australian officials if they wish to.”

It remains unclear when the remaining players will leave Australia.

“Australians have been moved by the plight of these brave women,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told reporters. “They’re safe here and they should feel at home here.”

“They then had to consider that and do it in a way that did not present any danger to them or to their families and friends back home in Iran,” he continued.

The asylum offer came after U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday called on Australia to grant asylum to any team member who wanted it.

Trump had blasted Australia on social media, saying Australia was “making a terrible humanitarian mistake” by allowing the team to be “forced back to Iran, where they will most likely be killed.”

Supporters react towards a bus transporting Iranian woman players following their Women’s Asian Cup soccer match against the Philippines on the Gold Coast, Australia, Sunday, March 8, 2026. (Dave Hunt/AAP Image via AP)

“The U.S. will take them if you won’t,” Trump said, despite his administration’s efforts to limit the number of immigrants in the U.S. who can receive asylum for political purposes.

Just hours later, Trump praised Albanese in another post.

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“He’s on it! Five have already been taken care of, and the rest are on their way,” Trump wrote.

Albanese said Trump had called him for “a very positive conversation,” about the issue. The prime minister said he explained “the action that we’d undertaken over the previous 48 hours” to support the women.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.