After a gruelling season, Naomi Osaka looks ready to hit the reset button. The four-time Grand Slam champion picked up her first title of the year at the WTA 250 in Saint Malo, made another coaching change, and reached two finals in Auckland and Montreal. Her 2025 campaign, though, ended painfully. She was forced to withdraw from the Japan Open before her quarterfinal match with a left leg injury. Since then, she’s stayed off the court and away from the spotlight. But behind the scenes, Osaka has quietly dropped some surprising news on the business front.

Shared on X by tennis journalist Ben Rothenberg, the update came as a twist. Osaka is stepping away from her role in the company she co-founded. He wrote, “Breaking some big tennis business news at Bounces: Naomi Osaka is leaving her longtime agent, Stuart Duguid, and the agency they cofounded in 2022, Evolve.” The question everyone’s asking is simple, why?

Well, Osaka’s management contract with Evolve runs out at the end of 2025. Sources say she’s heading back to IMG at the start of 2026, the same agency where Duguid repped her from late 2016 to early 2022. Her close friend and longtime manager, Alex Boston, is also making the move from Evolve to IMG, right in sync. How did the company come about?

The story of Evolve began with one of the most high-profile tennis business partnerships of the past decade. It all started when Naomi Osaka’s IMG contract wrapped up at the end of 2021. She and Duguid decided to launch their own agency, Evolve, in early 2022. Osaka’s endorsement power stayed unmatched that year, earning her more than any other female athlete by a wide margin.

But not everything clicked. A few of her ventures hit rough patches, her game flattened, and by the end of 2023, she seemed to drift from tennis altogether. Even hinted at retirement by the end of 2024 after returning from her maternity leave.

For now, Naomi Osaka has not made an official statement from her side. Meanwhile, Evolve’s roster has grown fast, now boasting women’s world No.1 Aryna Sabalenka, trailblazer Ons Jabeur, French talent Terence Atmane, Germany’s Eva Lys, and rising American teen Iva Jovic.

It’s been a tough year for the four-time Grand Slam champion. During the Wuhan Open, she opened up about the pressure the competition has brought on this year. “That’s kind of the tough part that I was dealing with today,” she revealed in an interaction with Tennis365 on October 7. She admitted, “I want to end the year in the top 10, but I don’t want to stress myself out too much about it.”

Having returned as a tennis mom to the competition, it’s not been an easy ride. She parted ways with renowned coach PAtrick Mouratoglou after facing early exits at the French Open and WImbledon. But there’s more than meets the eye.

Naomi Osaka admits that motherhood isn’t a walk in the park

On December 8, as reported by the Times of India, former World No. 1 Naomi Osaka turned her Instagram Stories into a little Q&A party with fans. It was everything you’d expect from Osaka—honest, funny, and refreshingly real.  One fan, who was also a new mother, shared that she was struggling to adjust to her new life and identity. Naomi Osaka didn’t sugarcoat her reply:

“I’m not going to lie to you I also struggled tremendously, your life changes overnight. I think for me I journaled a lot to keep track of how I felt, I was also lucky because I could play tennis and being on the court was a place of comfort for me. I would suggest you make time to do things that make you happy and also enjoy your new role because I promise you the time is going to go so quick and before you know it your baby is going to be talking back to you with sass,” she wrote on her story.

Her honesty didn’t stop there. When another fan asked about her biggest achievement this season, Osaka didn’t brag about trophies or comeback wins. Instead, she let her humility do the talking: “No achievement sticks out but I’m proud that I didn’t give up on myself,” she wrote.

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That’s the mindset of a champion who already owns four Grand Slam titles: the US Open in 2018 and 2020, and the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. Perhaps she’ll bring that eneergy into the 2026 season with more news on the business and on court ventures! What do you think?