Two comeback stories will collide on the tennis court Thursday night when American Amanda Anisimova and Naomi Osaka of Japan — who was also raised in the U.S. — play each other in the U.S. Open semifinals.
Anisimova and Osaka are both working their way back up the rankings after returning from mental health breaks in recent years. Each has battled her own set of challenges — as well as some of the top-ranked players in the world — to advance to the penultimate round of the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.
The two will face off at Arthur Ashe Stadium just after 8 p.m. ET on Thursday, with a lot on the line: The winner gets a spot in Saturday's final.
"It's exactly like a movie," says Jackie Johnston, a women's sports content creator.
Osaka, 27, is a four-time Grand Slam singles champion who in 2019 became the first Asian player to be ranked world No. 1 in women's singles. She took a break from the sport in 2021, citing her struggles with anxiety and depression, and has been an outspoken mental health advocate ever since.
Osaka took an extended maternity leave to give birth to her daughter in 2023, and returned to competition at the start of 2024 unranked. Because of how tennis tournaments are seeded, unranked players face an uphill battle, facing top players in early rounds.
"It is the hardest thing ever to do, to get your rating back up in tennis," Johnston says. "Because every single tournament you're actively playing the players that you usually would play in the semifinal in the first round, and then you're losing and then [your ranking is] staying the same."
Osaka, who is currently ranked 24th, defeated No. 11 Karolina Muchova on Wednesday to reach the U.S. Open semifinals for the first time since 2020 (she went on to win the title that year, as she did in 2018). Thursday will be her 5th Grand Slam semifinal, and her first since winning the Australian Open in 2021. It's also her first since becoming a mom.
"It means so much, I'm actually surprised I'm not crying," Osaka said on court after Wednesday's win. "There's been so much hard work that you guys haven't seen, but I'm just really grateful to my team and I'm just happy to be healthy."
Anisimova, 24, has also had a remarkable journey to the semis. On Wednesday, she defeated No. 2 Iga Świątek — a stunning upset, and swift vengeance less than two months after Świątek trounced her 6-0, 6-0 in the Wimbledon final.
"This has been such a dream, and to come back from Wimbledon, like, that is really special to me," Anisimova said afterward. "I feel like I worked really hard to try and turn around from that, and I mean, today proved everything for me, like, I can do it."
This will be Anisimova's first U.S. Open semifinal and third Grand Slam semifinal. Her first was the 2019 French Open, when the then-17-year-old became the youngest woman to advance that far in a major since 2006. But after several injuries and her father's sudden death, she announced an indefinite leave from the sport in 2023, citing burnout and mental health struggles.
Anisimova spent eight months away, spending time with loved ones and rediscovering creative hobbies. She returned to competitive tennis in early 2024 and has been working her way up ever since, catapulting into the top 20 after winning her first WTA 1000 title at the Qatar Open this February. She is currently ranked 9th.
"If you were writing a movie, you would have [Anisimova] lose to [Świątek] in the Wimbledon final so that she could come back and win in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, her home tournament, and then have her win the whole thing," Johnston says. "But if I was making a movie about [Osaka], I would also have her win the whole thing here … You can't have both movies, but it would be awesome to watch both."
Anisimova and Osaka have played each other twice before, in the French and Australian Opens of 2022. Anisimova won both times. But those were first- and third-round matches, respectively, and Osaka has never lost a Grand Slam tournament after reaching the semifinals.
Regardless of who advances to the final, Johnston says the fact that both players made it to the stage is a win, both for their careers and for the conversation about mental health in sports.
Johnston notes that just as not everyone is able to come back from a break, not all athletes have the same early success and financial means to step away from their sport in the first place, as Anisimova and Osaka have. And, she says, ideally they wouldn't have to.
"Hopefully the root cause is addressed and the symptom is not normalized," Johnston says. "I would love for there to be more mental health support to players while they are playing such that they don't feel the need to take a break … because players should hopefully not be getting to the point where they constantly need to walk away from a sport completely to feel good about it."
In an interview with Complex earlier this month, Osaka said prioritizing her mental health has changed how she prepares for tournaments. The broader conversation around it has also changed some aspects of tournaments themselves, like the addition of quiet rooms for players at the U.S. Open starting in 2021.
Osaka also offered advice to younger athletes: "You don't have to view self-care as a weakness."
Copyright 2025 NPR