Naomi Osaka withdraws from 2026 Australian Open due to recurring abdominal injury

MELBOURNE, Australia—The Australian Open announced Saturday that Naomi Osaka had withdrawn from her upcoming third-round match against Maddison Inglis due to a left abdominal injury.

“I've had to make the difficult decision to withdraw to address something my body needs attention for after my last match,” Osaka said in a statement posted to her Instagram Stories.

“I was so excited to keep going and this run meant the most to me, so having to stop here breaks my heart but I can't risk doing any further damage so I can get back on the court.

“Thanks for all the love and support..I'm so grateful everyone embraced me so much. And thank you to my whole team for always having my back and the tournament organizers for being so kind.”

The two-time champion and former world No. 1 won her past two matches in three sets but took a medical timeout during her second-round win over Sorana Cirstea and hinted to a past injury reoccurring in her post-match press conference.

“I guess if you look at my medical history, you can maybe do like a little guessing game,” Osaka said on Thursday.

Osaka has been one of the biggest stories of the tournament’s first week, first on account of her haute couture entrance look courtesy of designer Robert Wun, then due to a dust-up at the end of her match against Cirstea.

Cirstea gave Osaka a frosty handshake at net and later accused Osaka of poor sportsmanship because she yelled “Come on!” between serves in the third set of their match.

“No one's ever complained about it before,” Osaka said, later apologizing for her own comments towards Cirstea during her on-court interview. “Also the umpire didn't tell me, like, I was wrong. The umpire said I was fine. I was like, ‘Okay. That was kind of what I thought.’ Like, I thought we moved past it, so…”

Inglis will advance into the fourth round of the Australian Open, where she will face either No. 2 seed Iga Swiatek or Anna Kalinskaya.