The sun-drenched clay courts of Madrid’s Caja Mágica were the stage for a gripping yet heartbreaking chapter in Naomi Osaka’s 2025 season. The four-time Grand Slam champion, still navigating her comeback from a challenging early-season injury, fell in a marathon first-round match at the Mutua Madrid Open to Italy’s Lucia Bronzetti. The 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 defeat, which unfolded over two hours of intense rallies, underscored Osaka’s ongoing struggles on clay and raised questions about her physical and competitive readiness as the French Open looms.
Osaka, ranked No. 55 and unseeded in Madrid, entered the tournament with cautious optimism after a month-long hiatus since her fourth-round run at the Miami Open. Her 2025 season has been a rollercoaster, marked by a stirring final at the ASB Classic in Auckland, where she retired due to a recurring abdominal strain, and a third-round exit at the Australian Open against Belinda Bencic, again due to the same injury. “I kindiritual of have a history of it since I was a teenager,” Osaka said of the abdominal issue, which flared up after her second-round win over Karolina Muchova in Melbourne. The injury, linked to her explosive serving motion, has disrupted her rhythm, and Madrid was her first clay-court test of the year.
The match against Bronzetti, ranked No. 46, was a tale of momentum swings and missed opportunities. Osaka started sluggishly, conceding an early break in the first set despite clawing back to 3-3 with a hard-fought break point conversion. Bronzetti, however, capitalized on Osaka’s inconsistency, securing the set 6-4. The second set saw Osaka roar back, her powerful forehand and aggressive baseline play overwhelming Bronzetti, who managed just two games. “I tried to make some variation in my game like drop shots, I got a lot of points with that,” Bronzetti later reflected, but Osaka’s dominance in the second set leveled the match.
The deciding set was a grueling affair. Bronzetti surged to a 2-0 lead with an immediate break, but Osaka, showing the resilience that earned her four major titles, fought back to 3-3. Yet, her unforced errors—30 across the match compared to Bronzetti’s 11—proved costly. A critical break in the seventh game tilted the momentum, and as Osaka lunged for a cross-court shot on match point, she stumbled, sealing her defeat. Bronzetti’s sportsmanship shone through as she checked on Osaka before their handshake, a gesture that softened the sting of the loss. “From the outside maybe it seems easy, but when you’re on the court against a great champion like her, it’s always difficult,” Bronzetti said, praising Osaka’s intensity.
This loss marks another setback in Osaka’s clay-court journey, a surface where she has historically struggled. Her best Madrid result remains a 2019 quarterfinal, and last year, she fell in the second round to Liudmila Samsonova. “I feel like my serve could have been a lot better,” Osaka has previously noted about her clay challenges, where the slower surface dulls her biggest weapons—her serve and forehand. Her preparation at Patrick Mouratoglou’s academy in France aimed to sharpen her clay game, but the Bronzetti match exposed lingering rust, with Osaka describing her Indian Wells loss earlier this year as “the worst match I’ve ever played in my life.”
Osaka’s 2025 narrative is one of resilience amid adversity. After a 15-month maternity break, her return has been punctuated by flashes of brilliance, like her Melbourne win over Muchova, and setbacks, including retirements in Beijing and Auckland due to back and abdominal injuries. “I just hope that I can figure it out and figure out how to get healthy in time,” she said post-Australian Open, eyeing a return to form for Indian Wells and Miami. Her Madrid defeat, however, suggests that physical and mental recalibration is still a work in progress.
Bronzetti advances to face fifth seed Madison Keys, while Osaka must regroup quickly with Roland Garros on the horizon. Her candidness about her struggles—addressing critics who call her “mentally weak” by saying she now laughs off such remarks—reflects a maturing perspective. As a mother to daughter Shai and a mental health advocate, Osaka’s journey transcends the court. Madrid may have been a stumble, but her resolve to “learn how to win again,” as she put it after her Olympic loss last year, ensures her story remains one to watch.[](https://apnews.com/article/madrid-open-naomi-osaka-eala-328ae2a10a12e209d830aa0c6c18d45e)[](https://sportstar.thehindu.com/tennis/naomi-osaka-loses-first-round-madrid-open-lucia-bronzetti-match-score-wta-news/article69478975.ece)[](https://www.espn.com/tennis/story/_/id/43449149/naomi-osaka-retires-australian-open-match-due-injury)