Some athletes go to any measure to make sure they perform the best in their sport. Be it Novak Djokovic’s scrutinized vegan diet or Jannik Sinner’s soccer practices for high energy and stamina, brilliant ATP and WTA stars hardly leave any stone unturned to perform the best. Former US Open champion Naomi Osaka has chosen a similar path to improve her playing style. Referring to a specific goal connecting to her idol Serena Williams, Osaka delves deeper into why she opted to do ballet.

Osaka defeated Tunisian Ons Jabeur by 6-3 and 6-1 at the 2024 WTA Toronto opener, right after her return from maternity leave. She is ready to face Belgium’s Elise Martens today at the Center Court. After five months since defeating Caroline Garcia in the Miami Open, Osaka performed on her favorite hard surface and won a match.

In a press conference post-match, she attracted a lot of spotlight after revealing an interesting addition to improving her playstyle, including a ballet instructor to her team. The former world number-one welcomed USA-based freestyle dancer and choreographer Simone Elliott as her dance coach in the press conference. Her motive? Playing split forehands like the former tennis legend Serena Williams.

Osaka thanked Elliott for improving her on-court movements. Along with Elliott, Osaka also thanked her conditioning coach Florian Zitzelsberger for helping her to stay injury-free on tours. When asked about how Elliott’s presence helped Osaka, she said, “Oh, yeah, I think that Simone’s helped my movement a lot. She’s also kind of my mental coach. I said kind of, but she actually is my mental coach.” 

Additionally, Osaka seemed quite confident while mentioning how, in recent times, people might see her performing that stroke error-free, much like Williams or Kim Clijsters. “I’ve been doing ballet lessons with her, so I told her one of my goals is to do the really famous, like Clijsters and Serena, like, split forehand, so hopefully maybe in the next couple of months, if you see it on court, just know we’ve been working very hard on it,” she said.

While this Japanese WTA star confidently revealed adding Elliott’s ballet insights to her playstyle, she also spoke about her experience with this famous dance style. Given the hard nature of this body movement art, was Osaka confident attempting it?

Naomi Osaka reveals Simone Eliot’s ballet exercises were “hard” 

While speaking about her ballet classes, Osaka seemed enthusiastic and happy. However, going into the details of the practices, she said, “I can’t really say what kind of exercises she uses because she never really names them; we just do them. Sometimes, well, like three times, we did a ballet class. It’s so hard. I respect ballet and ballerinas so much . But it’s very interesting . It feels like a portal into a new world.”

Naomi Osaka’s revelations also expressed her newfound love for Ballet. It seemed this dance form also helped her reach a bodily awareness that the Tennis star had never felt before. However, along with such amazing realizations, Osaka found ballet hard.

“I feel very aware of my body in ways that I’ve never felt before. So that’s also something about which I’m fascinated to know what happens if I keep training this way, and hopefully I’ll get better and better,” she said.

Her new strategy to attempt split forehand seemed truly interesting. Given that she already started showing her magic in the Canadian Open’s first round, people hope to see her ballet lesson helping her to create magic.