{"id":108034,"date":"2026-07-06T13:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/?p=108034"},"modified":"2026-07-06T13:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T17:25:15","slug":"can-osaka-win-wimbledon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/2026\/07\/06\/can-osaka-win-wimbledon\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Naomi Osaka Do the Unthinkable at Wimbledon?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Naomi Osaka walked onto Centre Court<\/a> on Sunday as the No. 14 seed against the world No. 1, having lost to Aryna Sabalenka 3 times in 2026 already, and won 6-2, 7-6(2) in 1 hour and 28 minutes. She served 8 aces, won the tiebreak 7- and did not face a break point in the second set.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka is in the Wimbledon quarterfinal for the first time in her career. The top 3 seeds in the women’s draw, Sabalenka, Elena Rybakina, and Iga Swiatek, are all gone. The draw is now the most open it has been at any major in recent memory. And the question that nobody expected to be asking seriously at the start of this tournament is now impossible to avoid: can Naomi Osaka win Wimbledon?<\/span><\/p>\n

The honest answer is yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why Osaka Can Win Wimbledon<\/h2>\n

Why the Win Over Sabalenka Was Not a Fluke<\/h3>\n

Context matters here. Sabalenka had not lost in straight sets at a Grand Slam since the 2020 US Open. She had not lost a tiebreak at a major since 2023, ending what had been the longest tiebreak winning streak in the Open Era at 21 consecutive tiebreaks won, men included. She had beaten Naomi Osaka in their last 3 meetings, including in straight sets at Roland Garros. She is a 4-time Grand Slam champion and had been considered the tournament favourite by most analytical assessments of the women’s draw heading into the second week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka did not sneak past her. She dominated the first set 6-2, played through a competitive second set without ever conceding a break point, and then controlled the tiebreak from point 3 onwards. It was a match where Osaka’s flat, heavy ball-striking made the grass-court conditions work exactly as they should for her game: low bounce, fast pace, short points, minimal opportunity for Sabalenka to construct rallies and find the spin she needed. Osaka’s 8-1 grass-court record in 2026 is the most wins she has ever recorded on the surface in a single calendar year. The form is real, and the surface suits her better than anyone has previously acknowledged.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said on court afterward that it has been a long time since she has had so much fun on court, and that doing it at Wimbledon means everything. That is not what you want to hear if you\u2019re going to go against her.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Draw From Here<\/h3>\n

With Sabalenka, Rybakina, and Swiatek all out before the quarterfinals, Wimbledon will produce a 9th consecutive first-time women’s singles champion<\/a>. That is already guaranteed regardless of what happens from Tuesday onward. The question now is which first-time champion it will be, and Naomi Osaka is as viable a candidate as anyone remaining in the draw.<\/span><\/p>\n

She faces No. 10 Karolina Muchova in the quarterfinal. Muchova is a dangerous grass-court player with serious all-court credentials, a Wimbledon quarterfinal pedigree, and the sliced variety that can disrupt flat ball-strikers. It is not a straightforward match, and treating it as such would be a mistake. But Muchova has not produced the sustained dominance across this fortnight that would make her a significant favourite against a player in Osaka’s current form. If Naomi Osaka wins that quarterfinal, the semifinal and final become conversations that were simply not possible to have 7 days ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other half of the draw features No. 4 Jessica Pegula, who has been solid and resilient but not spectacular, and Coco Gauff, who reached her first Wimbledon quarterfinal in the most dramatic fashion possible, finishing her match against Belinda Bencic just before the 11 p.m. curfew. Gauff’s grass-court record is improving, but her Wimbledon history remains complicated. Pegula has never made a Grand Slam final. These are not opponents that a player of Naomi Osaka’s calibre and Grand Slam experience should be intimidated by.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The Case For and the Case Against<\/h3>\n

Naomi Osaka has 4 Grand Slam titles, all on hard courts. She has never won on grass, has never been past the 4th round at Wimbledon before this week, and has spent the last several years managing her physical and mental health in ways that made sustained deep runs at majors inconsistent even when her game was good. All of that is relevant context.<\/span><\/p>\n

The case against her winning Wimbledon is straightforward: she is 28, has never played at this stage of the tournament before on any surface other than hard courts, and faces opponents in the second week who will not be as straightforwardly neutralised as Sabalenka was on Sunday. Muchova’s slice and variety are exactly the kind of game plan that can unsettle a player who is looking for pace to redirect. A semifinal against Pegula or Gauff, and a potential final, would require 3 more matches at the highest level from someone who has never before been required to produce that across a full Wimbledon fortnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

The case for her is simpler and, given what happened on Sunday, more compelling than it has any right to be. She is hitting the ball better on grass than she ever has. She beat the world No. 1 with a performance that contained no luck and very little anxiety. The draw, through circumstance and attrition, has removed every player who was considered comfortably superior to her. She has a team she trusts, a surface she has unexpectedly discovered, and 4 Grand Slam titles’ worth of experience in the moments that count.<\/span><\/p>\n

Winning Wimbledon from this position would be remarkable. It would also be one of the great stories in women’s tennis in a generation. Naomi Osaka winning a 5th major, on the one surface nobody ever expected her to conquer, as a mother returning from maternity leave, in the most open women’s draw in years. The unthinkable has a road map now.<\/span><\/p>\n

She just has to walk it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit: Mike Frey – USA TODAY Sports<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Naomi Osaka walked onto Centre Court on Sunday as the No. 14 seed against the world No. 1, having lost to Aryna Sabalenka 3 times in 2026 already, and won 6-2, 7-6(2) in 1 hour and 28 minutes. She served 8 aces, won the tiebreak 7- and did not face a break point in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5393,"featured_media":63878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,15913,6],"tags":[43844,3716,476,21,364],"class_list":["post-108034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-opinion","category-wimbledon","tag-2026-wimbledon","tag-karolina-muchova","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-wimbledon","tag-wta-tour"],"modified_by":"Shane Black","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108034"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":108047,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108034\/revisions\/108047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}