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As a tennis former world number one, four-time Grand Slam winner, and one of the highest paid women in sports, Naomi Osaka is used to having her moves documented—be it in her training sessions, which she films and often shares on her social media accounts, her matches, or press interviews.
She didn’t quite anticipate the delivery of her daughter, Shai, in July 2023, being one of them. But as it turned out, Osaka’s mother voice-recorded her childbirth—capturing “the moment Shai came into the world,” Naomi says, recalling the unexpected, though not unwelcome, memento.
It’s an intimate anecdote for someone as famously private as Osaka to share. But it gives an insight into her world: For all the hugeness of her career achievements, for all the trophies she’s won and the businesses she now heads up (talent agency Evolve, creative media company Hana Kuma, and skin care brand Kinlò), family comes first. The birth of Shai was marked by three generations of Osaka women side by side.
Motherhood, Osaka says, has profoundly transformed her. Yes, there was pain—her childbirth and postpartum was hard. Yes, her daily life now has a competing focus: “My world turned into a completely different world in one night.” And yes, she had to relearn herself: “I can put my foot down a lot more now.” But as she healed and put herself back together (“it was a really long process”), the Naomi that came out the other side was more powerful and more whole than ever.
“I just don’t really care about other people’s opinions anymore.”
“I feel so strong,” she says. “People talk about childbirth, but it’s different once you experience it. I just feel like I can do anything and nothing will bother me, and the pain tolerance has definitely increased a lot from that. I just don’t really care about other people’s opinions anymore.”
To hear Osaka speak about the outsize impact becoming a parent has had on her makes it feel like her superpower. In her universe mothers are driven, stronger for the challenges they have survived. They are none of the negative stereotypes that sometimes follow women around postpartum or into the workplace. They can put a child at the center of their world and yet still be a world-class champion.
