{"id":14608,"date":"2023-12-28T04:14:43","date_gmt":"2023-12-28T09:14:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/naomi-osaka-hits-practice-court-ahead-of-return-in-brisbane\/28\/12\/2023\/"},"modified":"2023-12-28T04:14:44","modified_gmt":"2023-12-28T09:14:44","slug":"naomi-osaka-hits-practice-court-ahead-of-return-in-brisbane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/naomi-osaka-hits-practice-court-ahead-of-return-in-brisbane\/28\/12\/2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka hits practice court ahead of return in Brisbane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div>\n<p>BRISBANE, Australia &#8212; Former No. 1 and new mom <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2789\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Naomi Osaka<\/a> hit the practice court Wednesday ahead of the Brisbane International as she prepared for her much-anticipated return to tennis.<\/p>\n<p>Osaka will make her WTA comeback at the tournament, which begins Sunday at Pat Rafter Arena. A two-time Australian and US Open champion, Osaka pulled out of last year&#8217;s Australian Open in Melbourne and later revealed she was pregnant.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S.-based Japanese player and her American rapper boyfriend, Cordae, became parents to daughter Shai in Los Angeles in July.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"inline editorial float-r\" data-behavior=\"article_related\">\n<h2 class=\"editorial-title\">Editor&#8217;s Picks<\/h2>\n<p>2 Related<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Osaka has played only one game since the 2021 US Open in New York. She was leading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1644\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Daria Saville<\/a> 1-0 at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in September 2021 before the Australian suffered a serious knee injury and had to retire from the match.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s really pumped, excited to be back in Brisbane,&#8221; tournament director Cameron Pearson said Wednesday. &#8220;She arrived Christmas morning and was out practicing a few hours later. No Christmas pudding for her, she was straight into it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=261\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Rafael Nadal<\/a> also is set to return from injury in Brisbane in a 32-man ATP field so strong that Wimbledon finalist <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2622\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Matteo Berrettini<\/a> and 2020 US Open champion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1852\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Dominic Thiem<\/a> will have to qualify to feature in it.<\/p>\n<p>Nadal held his first practice session Thursday in Brisbane.<\/p>\n<p>Thiem made the Australian Open final in 2020, and Berrettini was a semifinalist two years later. Both are currently sitting outside the top-60 cutoff mark that received automatic entry into the season-opening event.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3659\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Holger Rune<\/a>, at No. 8, is the highest-ranked man in the tournament. American <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=9250\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Ben Shelton<\/a> and three-time Grand Slam singles champion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=235\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Andy Murray<\/a> are also entered.<\/p>\n<p>Reigning Australian Open champion <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3038\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Aryna Sabalenka<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=3126\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Elena Rybakina<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2195\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Jelena Ostapenko<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=421\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Victoria Azarenka<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=2746\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sofia Kenin<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.espn.com\/sports\/tennis\/players\/profile?playerId=1472\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Sloane Stephens<\/a> are in the 54-player women&#8217;s draw.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/tennis\/story\/_\/id\/39194982\/naomi-osaka-hits-practice-court-ahead-return-brisbane\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BRISBANE, Australia &mdash; Former No. 1 and new mom Naomi Osaka hit the practice court Wednesday ahead of the Brisbane International as<br \/><button class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/sport\/naomi-osaka-hits-practice-court-ahead-of-return-in-brisbane\/28\/12\/2023\/\">Read More &rsaquo;<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14611,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[256,3749,1661,557,1620,1621,195,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14610,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14608\/revisions\/14610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}