WTA star Naomi Osaka lists UConn’s Paige Bueckers as WNBA comparison

Women’s tennis star Naomi Osaka will begin her hunt for a third US Open title in a few days time when the world No. 13 will face off against Anastasia Zakharova Monday evening. 

To ring in her return to the “Mecca of Basketball,” Osaka was asked to name her WNBA comparison. She named former UConn women’s basketball star Paige Bueckers alongside Angel Reese and Sabrina Ionescu. In the Overtime Tennis video, Osaka also stated that she’s met Bueckers before and recalled the young point guard being “really cool.”

Bueckers has also expressed an interest in the tennis world, attending the 2024 Mubadala DC Open men’s singles semifinals as her first live tennis match in support of Frances Tiafoe. She was also in New York for that year’s US Open, joining her former UConn teammate Azzi Fudd to watch defending champion Coco Gauff in action. 

Osaka and Bueckers both emerged as national prodigies in their respective sports, as the Japanese-born tennis player made her professional debut shortly before her 16th birthday after moving to the United States as a child. She defeated Serena Williams in straight sets to win the 2018 US Open at just 20 years old, around the same time that Bueckers had emerged as the nation’s top high school prospect and chose UConn in a highly publicized recruitment. 

Osaka’s 2018 victory in Queens kickstarted a string of four Grand Slam victories in as many years, including another US Open triumph in 2020. Osaka took maternity leave in 2023 and initially struggled to rediscover her early-career form, but the 28-year-old reached the semifinals of last year’s US Open and is coming off a quarterfinal run in Wimbledon earlier this summer. 

There are similarities between the two athletes away from their respective playing surfaces as well, as Osaka grew into the world’s highest-paid female athlete in 2020, picking up notable endorsements from Nike, Louis Vuitton, Panasonic and Tag Heuer, among other brands. Bueckers, meanwhile, became Gatorade’s first NCAA athlete partner in 2021 and eventually became the first college athlete to launch a Nike player edition sneaker last year.