One might wonder why, in Naomi Osaka's past greatness, she has never been elite on grass courts. She has the serve to be great on any surface, but especially on a faster one. Maybe her volley skills were lacking, but she's always moved around the court well.
She is proving at the 2026 Bad Homburg Open that, after returning in 2024 from a layoff of more than a year, she might be a different player, but one still capable of excellence. It has just taken her a while to get close to the form that allowed her to win four Grand Slams (two Australian Opens and two US Opens).
Her serve has been overwhelming her opponents at the German event, and she might be performing at a higher level than even she thought. She not only holds in most of her service games, but she has rarely dropped a point. That didn't change in the semifinals against Wang Xinyu until, stunningly, the Chinese player got a break of the Japanese player to get back to even at 2-all in the second set.
Naomi Osaka reaches first grass-court final of her career at the 2026 Bad Homburg Open
The problem for Xinyu was that she was trying to battle back from a set down because Osaka was overpowering in the opening set with six aces, and winning 82 percent of her first serve points. She also won 63 percent of her second serves.
The other issue for Xinyu was that Osaka was returning with precision and speed, too. While the Chinese player did get the break in set two, it followed a game in which she was broken and preceded another break.
Osaka appears to be trending upward just in time for Wimbledon, which begins on Monday, June 29. She hadn't made a semifinal on a grass court since the 2018 Nottingham Open before the Bad Homburg Open. She had never reached a final on the surface until she defeated Wang Xinyu. Once Osaka got the break right back after being broken in the second set, the outcome seemed assured.
Xinyu, to her credit, did try to keep battling, and actually took more points off Osaka's serve than most of the Japanese player's previous opponents at Bad Homburg. Trying to get more than one break proved impossible, however. Osaka would take the second set 6-3 to move into the final.
On Saturday, Naomi Osaka will play the winner of the Elena-Gabriela Ruse and Karolina Muchova match. Muchova has had some success on grass courts before, including reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon twice.
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