{"id":71731,"date":"2024-03-16T03:28:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T03:28:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/osaka-to-play-billie-jean-king-cup-for-first-time-since-2020-the-express-tribune\/"},"modified":"2024-03-16T03:28:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-16T03:28:17","slug":"osaka-to-play-billie-jean-king-cup-for-first-time-since-2020-the-express-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/osaka-to-play-billie-jean-king-cup-for-first-time-since-2020-the-express-tribune\/","title":{"rendered":"Osaka to play Billie Jean King Cup for first time since 2020 | The Express Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\nTOKYO:
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Naomi Osaka will play the Billie Jean King Cup for the first time in four years when Japan face Kazakhstan in a qualifier in Tokyo next month, the team said Friday.<\/p>\n

The four-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one is making her return to tennis this season after giving birth, and last played at the tournament in 2020.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old has played at five tournaments since making her comeback, and lost to Belgium’s Elise Mertens in the last 32 at the Indian Wells Masters earlier this week.<\/p>\n

She is currently ranked 287 in the world after taking a 15-month break from the tour for maternity leave.<\/p>\n

It will be Osaka’s<\/a> first appearance in Tokyo since she withdrew from the Pan Pacific Open in September 2022 before her second-round match.<\/p>\n

Japan will face Kazakhstan on April 12 and 13 at Tokyo’s Ariake Coliseum, where Osaka reached the third round of the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.<\/p>\n

The winners will advance to November’s finals in Spain.<\/p>\n

“She said that she wants to play, so I’m really happy,” local media quoted Japan captain Ai Sugiyama as saying.<\/p>\n

Osaka has previously said that she wants to play at this summer’s Paris Olympics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO: Naomi Osaka will play the Billie Jean King Cup for the first time in four years when Japan face Kazakhstan in a qualifier in Tokyo next month, the team said Friday. The four-time Grand Slam winner and former world number one is making her return to tennis this season after giving birth, and last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/osaka1709902100-0\/osaka1709902100-0.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71731\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}