Naomi Osaka may miss Wimbledon for the second year in a row after the grass-court tournament was stripped of ranking points, having banned Russian and Belarusian players over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The former world No 1 described herself as ‘the type of player that gets motivated by seeing my ranking go up’ and as such sees little point in attending the ‘exhibition’ other than for the experience.
‘I don’t want to say it’s pointless – no pun intended,’ Osaka added. The four-times grand slam winner, who lost her French Open first-round match to Amanda Asimova on Monday, has not played competitively on grass since 2019.