Why Naomi Osaka's struggles will not stop any time soon on clay

Naomi Osaka once made a promise that she’s going to try and become good on clay. That promise has so far not been kept by the Japanese player because it’s been a while since she made that promise, and she continues to struggle on clay.

Recent trends in her tennis don’t indicate that will change anytime soon because the most recent match on clay that she played was at the Madrid Open, where she was beaten in the first round.

She was beaten by Lucia Bronzetti, who, to her credit, can be quite tough to play against, especially on clay. She has a lot of tricks in her bag, which can frustrate players, and she certainly did a fine job frustrating Osaka in their match.

Bronzetti is not a player that Osaka should not be able to beat on clay, though. That’s particularly true in Madrid because that event suits Osaka far more than regular clay tournaments.

The ball flies quickly, benefiting good servers and baseliners like herself, and it’s not as slow and draggy as clay generally tends to be. If Osaka was going to make some sort of run on clay, it would have happened on this court. Losing to Bronzetti in the first round is a huge indictment on the Japanese player.

It’s not a huge surprise, though, when we zoom out and look at how her comeback has generally been going. It’s been well over a year, and there are few people that would say that the comeback was successful. She’s not the same player she was before, and while that was expected, just how different of a player she is these days is a bit shocking.

She’s not even close to the player she was, and her results in 2025 haven't been able to match her lofty standards from the past. We’re in the fourth month of the season, and she has nine wins in 14 matches. That’s not bad by any means, but it’s not Top 10 level either.

She wants to get back to the Top 10, but it does not appear that it is going to happen anytime soon, certainly not during the clay season. The reason why was seen in the match against Bronzetti, which we’ll break down below.

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Noami Osaka continues to struggle on clay

Mutua Madrid Open - Previews - Source: Getty

Naomi Osaka didn’t play her best against Lucia Bronzetti in the three-set loss. Not even close. But the match also showed some fundamental issues in her game, which make her simply a bad fit on clay. The results back it up—she’s 8-11 on the surface dating back to 2021, and that’s a really poor mark. You’d be hard-pressed to find Top 10-level talents with that kind of record on clay.

To be good on a surface, a player has to be comfortable on it, and Osaka never was and likely never will be comfortable on it. The match against Bronzetti showed that because she looked as if she was unable to find her rhythm. Admittedly, she was struggling, but she wasn’t moving well.

Osaka just doesn’t move as well as she did before, and it’s painfully obvious on clay. Bronzetti quickly realized that she had to use drop shots, and she was dominating Osaka with the drop shot because the Japanese player simply couldn’t get to them in time.

That frustration impacted Osaka’s approach, and she simply started spamming the ball all over the place, missing most of those shots. On clay, you have to grind out points, you have to slowly construct them, and Osaka hasn't been able to do that, which results in her attempting outrageous shots that rarely hit.

All of that is a problem because if there is a court where this tactic was going to work, it’s in Madrid, where the ball flies. This won’t work in Rome. It won’t work in Paris. So Osaka is essentially trying to do something that won’t work on clay, and it will result in her not improving on the surface and likely never becoming the type of player she could be on clay.

Earlier in her career, Osaka had some good moments on the surface, but now, at this stage of her career, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen.

The match against Bronzetti showed a player who is deeply uncomfortable on the surface. Her primary tactic of slamming the ball as hard as she can doesn’t work, and that won’t work on many clay courts.

Time will tell whether anything changes because her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, is very familiar with clay as a surface, but so far, he hasn’t been able to help her change her approach and make a telling impact.