Teenager Mia Pohankova Stuns Naomi Osaka in Tokyo to Reach the Quarterfinals

Slovak teenager Mia Pohankova beat former champion Naomi Osaka 6-3, 7-5 on Thursday at the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo, recording the biggest win of her career and reaching the quarterfinals in front of Osaka's home crowd.

Pohankova, a wild card who turned 18 this month, is ranked No. 144 in the world. A year ago she stood at No. 659. She won the Wimbledon junior singles title last year, and this week marks her first main draw appearance at a WTA 500 level tournament, according to the WTA Tour. Osaka, 29, is a former world number one, a four time Grand Slam champion and the seventh seed in Tokyo, where she won the title in 2019.

How the match turned

Osaka started the faster of the two and led 2-0 in the opening set. Pohankova settled, broke Osaka's serve three times in the set and took it 6-3. The second set went with serve for eleven games. Osaka created break points in the first and seventh games and could not take either one. Pohankova saved two break points across her own service games, then broke Osaka in the twelfth game, on her first match point, to close out the win in one hour and 35 minutes.

"I believe in myself all the time, and yes, it's a really good match against her," Pohankova said after the match, in remarks published by the WTA Tour. "She's a really good player, and I'm just proud of myself. I'm really happy, and I hope it's just the start of my career."

What it means for Osaka

Osaka was playing in Tokyo for the first time since 2022. She opened her week with a straight sets win over Jasmine Paolini, but she could not build on it, and Reuters reported that the defeat brought her 2026 season to an end. Osaka has not won a title this year. Last week she said she had thought about retirement and wondered how long she would keep playing, a theme she returned to before this tournament, where she also said she feels close to the form that won her four major titles. Thursday's loss, to a player ranked more than 120 places below her, shows the gap she still has to close.

What comes next

Pohankova faces American Alycia Parks in the quarterfinals. Parks beat Australia's Kimberly Birrell 6-3, 6-1 earlier on Thursday. In the day's other second round matches, top seed Elena Rybakina beat Yulia Putintseva 6-2, 6-3, and Canada's Leylah Fernandez beat fifth seed Elise Mertens 6-2, 7-6 (8). For Pohankova, the Parks match is a chance at a first WTA semifinal, in the first WTA 500 main draw of her career.