MIAMI - Former world No. 1 Naomi Osaka announced on Wednesday that she is pregnant and will be taking a break from tennis until 2024.

“I know that I have so much to look forward to in the future, one thing I’m looking forward to is for my kid to watch my matches and tell someone, ‘That’s my mom’ haha,” she wrote on Twitter, accompanied by a picture of a pregnancy scan. She did not reveal how far along she was.

“2023 will be a year full of lessons for me, and I hope I’ll see you guys at the start of the next one cause I will be back at the Australian Open 2024. Love you all infinitely.”

While she did not reveal the identity of her baby’s father, she has been involved in a relationship with rapper Cordae since 2019.

The 25-year-old Japanese has not played a tennis match since September and her withdrawal from the Australian Open, which starts on Monday, had puzzled many observers.

Osaka had not explained her absence until Wednesday.

Her last tournament appearance was at the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo in September, where the home favourite withdrew before her second-round match, complaining of abdominal pain.

Although she has lived in the United States since she was a toddler, Osaka, whose parents are Haitian-American and Japanese, represents Japan and was given the honour of lighting the cauldron to begin the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The top-ranked player in the world in 2019, she is now ranked 47th in the world.

Osaka has four Grand Slam singles titles – she won the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021 and the US Open in 2018 and 2020.

She withdrew from the 2021 French Open after declining to attend news conferences, saying that she found them detrimental to her mental health, and she revealed that she had struggled with depression.

She took a break from the game but has not been the same player since, suffering first-round defeats at both the 2022 French and US Opens and withdrawing from Wimbledon with an Achilles injury.

She was named the world’s top-earning female athlete for 2022 by Forbes, with reported earnings of US$51.1 million (S$68 million).

Her business portfolio includes a skin care products company focused on people with darker skin tones, and she has written a children’s book. In 2022, Osaka and her long-time agent, Stuart Duguid, left IMG, the sports and entertainment conglomerate, to begin Evolve, which manages her business interests as well as other clients.

“These few months away from the sport have really given me a new love and appreciation for the game I’ve dedicated my life to. I realise that life is so short, and I don’t take any moments for granted; every day is a new blessing and adventure,” she wrote in her statement on Wednesday. AFP, NYTIMES