How Motherhood Transformed Tennis Great Naomi Osaka

“Having a baby completely destroys your pelvic floor,” Osaka says. “I was shocked, because I couldn’t get up out of my bed. I had to roll sideways, and it was a really long process because, for me, my immediate way of thinking is: To rebuild this I have to do a lot of sit-ups. And I learned that that’s totally not what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to do deep pelvic-floor work.

“I did have a really great team around me that gave me a lot of information,” she acknowledges. But, she notes, “I feel like that’s something that not a lot of people have access to.”

Given the place she is now, with all of the data she has gathered about her physique, her restoration, and caring for a new child, I ask whether or not, when she was embarking on her being pregnant, she was nervous—not nearly start however about her profession. After all, it was lower than 5 years in the past when Olympian Allyson Felix revealed that her then sponsor Nike needed to pay her 70% much less when she needed to mix her profession with beginning a household. (Nike responded to the general public outcry by saying a brand new maternity coverage for his or her sponsored athletes.)

“I was extremely nervous,” Osaka admits. “I felt like I was stepping into the unknown, and I also felt like the last few years of my career were kind of sporadic too. So I didn’t even know if my sponsors wanted to take up the energy to go through this with me. But I’m really happy that I chose people around me that understand me and we’re going through this adventure together. I guess the biggest elephant in the room is Nike, but they’ve been so extremely helpful.”

In a touching full-circle second, Felix, whose outspoken testimony paved the best way for sporting moms in her wake, grew to become a key help from Osaka throughout her maternity depart, calling her for “random checkups because she knew what I was going through. It was really nice to be thought about.”

As Osaka prepares to step on courtroom in Melbourne in only a few days to attempt to reclaim an Australian Open title, Naomi Osaka the tennis champion and Naomi Osaka the mom are the twin identities she’ll be carrying. It’s a change she’s nonetheless grappling with. “It seems so far apart from being a mom when I walk on the court,” she says. “I’ve been playing tennis since I was three, so that’s something that is as normal as breathing for me.” But on the similar time: “I often worry about if I’m a good mom, but at the end of the day, I realize Shai is my daughter. There’s nothing I could do or I want to do that’s going to change that, and I just want to be a good role model for her and I want her to be proud of me.”