Naomi Osaka finally has an answer to Aryna Sabalenka. The 14th seed beat the world No. 1 6-2, 7-6 to reach her first Wimbledon quarter-final, snapping a run in which Sabalenka had won all three of their previous meetings this season, including at Roland Garros just a month earlier.

Asked what had suddenly clicked for her on the grass, Osaka pointed straight to her team, with a special mention for her coach, Tomasz Wiktorowski, who previously worked with Iga Swiatek.

“The big Polish man, shout out Tomasz,” she said during the on-court interview. “Shout out my team, Mati, Jacob, Robbie who’s at home probably crying and watching this. My team is the best team ever. I have so much fun with them. I learned so much, and I’m so grateful that they’re on this journey with me.”

The win extended what is already Osaka’s best season on grass and clay combined, having reached her first grass-court final in Bad Homburg just before Wimbledon. It also showed there was a change in her game that Wiktorowski, who has been working with her since last summer, has definitely helped her break on a surface that had eluded her for years.

The manner of Sabalenka’s exit only underlined how completely the match had slipped away from the world No. 1. As the second set tie-break turned decisively in Osaka’s favor, a visibly frustrated Belarusian launched a ball in anger that sailed out of the stadium altogether, landing inside Center Court’s retractable roof. It was a sign of how frustrated and disappointed she was with her performance. She made a swift exit from the center court, moments after the match’s final point. 

Osaka’s rise under Wiktorowski reaches its highest point yet

In 2024, when Osaka was rebuilding herself after giving birth to her daughter, she hired Serena Williams’ former coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. Their collaboration was not particularly favorable for the Japanese superstar, having a 16-10 win-loss record. Osaka decided to end the partnership after the French Open in July and hired Iga Swiatek’s former coach. 

Under Wiktorowski’s guidance, Osaka’s performance has improved drastically. The partnership has already delivered her first WTA 1000 final since the Miami Open in 2022, her first Grand Slam semi-final since the 2021 Australian Open, but Wimbledon marks new territory entirely. 

“Honestly, with Tomasz, I would say the thing I trained most during this off-season, he’s more like decision-making for me. Like awareness on what’s happening during the point. He’s definitely alerting me to understand that the ball that I hit was good, so go forward type of thing. With him it’s more like he trusts my shot-making, but it’s the decisions to make in between that time,” Osaka explained at the Australian Open. 

Having reached the third round in three of her previous appearances at the All England Club without ever going further, Osaka’s run to the quarter-final is now the best result of her career at the tournament. It mirrors the same breakthrough she made at Roland Garros earlier this season after three prior third-round exits there, too.

With Wiktorowski’s methods now delivering results on every surface she has played this year, Osaka’s Wimbledon quarter-final looks less like an outlier and more like the logical next step in a career that has quietly rebuilt itself over the past twelve months.