Nao Hibino

Personal life and background Hibino was born on November 28, 1994, in Ichinomiya, Japan. Coming from a tennis-loving family, she is named after former top-20 player Naoko Sawamatsu, while her brother is named after Shuzo Matsuoka. She also has one older sister. At the age of 10, she and her brother were introduced to tennis by their mother.

In 2015, Hibino moved to Kobe, Japan for training. She enjoys spending time with her family because she rarely gets the chance to live with them. When she returns home, she often goes shopping with her sister and takes their dogs for a walk. She also likes reading and often reads in her spare time. Hibino enjoys eating local foods and sightseeing at famous places while travelling on tour. Since a young age, she has dreamt of playing on the Centre Court of Wimbledon. She began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit in January 2009 at the age of 14. The following March, she made her debut at the Grade 1 Japan Open in Nagoya, reaching the second round in both the singles and doubles events. Three weeks later, she won her first junior singles title at the Grade-4 Gallipoli Youth Tennis Cup in Queensland after defeating Ashleigh Barty in the final. There she also won her first doubles title. In October, she played her strongest tournament to date, the Grade A Osaka Mayor's Cup, where she advanced to the second round. She played in the qualifying draw of the $25k tournament in Karuizawa in the singles event but failed to reach the main draw. Nonetheless, she made her debut in the doubles event. A month later, she was given a wildcard for the singles main draw of the 10k tournament in Tokyo. This performance put her on the WTA rankings for the first time, getting to No. 974 in singles. In September of the same year, she won her first ITF doubles title in Kyoto along with the title in singles as well. During the year, Hibino improved her ranking. In singles, she rose from world No. 576 in the opening week to No. 291 as her year-end ranking. In doubles, she advanced from No. 1069 to No. 327. In late July, she won both singles and doubles titles at the 50k Lexington Challenger. The victory helped her debut inside the top 100 of the WTA singles rankings, rising up to No. 76. By the end of the year, she advanced to the semifinal of the WTA 125 Hua Hin Championships, The following week, she advanced to the second round of the Hobart International. Her improvement continued with her WTA 1000 debut at the Qatar Ladies Open where she defeated Yaroslava Shvedova, before losing to world No. 5, Garbiñe Muguruza. She then suffered first-round losses at the WTA 1000 Indian Wells and Miami Opens. She then did not perform well at either the French Open or Wimbledon, losing in the first round. However, it was her first main draw appearance at both. In early August, she advanced to another tour quarterfinal, this time at the Brasil Tennis Cup in Florianópolis but lost to Irina-Camelia Begu. She followed this performance by playing for Japan at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where this time she was able to defeat Begu but then lost to Muguruza. With her debut at the US Open, she played the main draw at all four major tournaments, but again lost in the first round. and the title of the 100k Poitiers tournament in doubles. She rebounded at the Monterrey Open in April, winning her first doubles title. Alongside Alicja Rosolska, she defeated Dalila Jakupović and Nadiia Kichenok in the final. Her losing in qualifying at WTA 1000 tournaments continued in Madrid and Rome. After first-round losses at the French Open and Wimbledon, she managed to win three matches in a row in singles for the first time since March. She did so at the Jiangxi Open in Nanchang but lost to Peng Shuai in the final. Later, at the Tashkent Open, she reached the final in doubles but failed to win the title. Winning in straight sets over her compatriot Misaki Doi, Hibino won the title. In doubles, she partnered with Doi and they defeated Christina McHale and Valeria Savinykh in the final. That was the first time that she won both events in the same WTA tournament. With these results, she returned to the top 100. In her next three tournaments, she produced more great results in doubles. First, at the Premier-level Pan Pacific Open, she advanced to the semifinal, followed up by a final at the Tianjin Open. A month later, she won the title at the 100k Shenzhen Open. Next, she advanced to the semifinal of the Hua Hin Championships, after recording her first top-10 win over Svitolina. However, she could not build on this success in the following round, losing to qualifier Leonie Küng. After tennis resumed in August due to COVID-19, she suffered three consecutive losses at the Cincinnati Open, US Open, and Italian Open. However, she made it her second semifinal of the year at the Internationaux de Strasbourg. and Jeļena Ostapenko. She then lost to Elena Rybakina to miss the final. Hibino closed out the year with her first win at the French Open, a victory over qualifier Marta Kostyuk in the first round. Ons Jabeur knocked her out in the following round.

2021–22: Olympics debut, first tour final in two years Hibino started year with a match win over wildcard player Astra Sharma at the Australian Open. She then had five consecutive first round losses, including one at the WTA 1000 Miami Open. Despite that, she advanced to her first quarterfinal of the 2021 season at the green clay event, the Charleston Open. She then continued with mostly first-round losses but managed to win one match at each of the French Open and Wimbledon. Her next step was playing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in her home country, Japan. She lost in the opening round to Serbian player Nina Stojanović. This final was the first for Hibino since the end of 2019. At the Olympics, she also played in doubles alongside Ninomiya but they lost in the first round to the Australian team of Ashleigh Barty and Storm Sanders.

Ranked No. 251 at the 2022 Prague Open, Hibino entered the main draw as a lucky loser and stunned defending champion and second seed Barbora Krejčíková to reach the quarterfinals.

2023: Prague Open singles and doubles titles Gaining entry as a lucky loser, Hibino won her third career title at the Prague Open, defeating fourth seed Linda Nosková in the final. Partnering Oksana Kalashnikova, she also won the doubles title at the same tournament with a win over Quinn Gleason and Elixane Lechemia in the championship match. at the Jiangxi Open in Nanchang, China, and reached the quarterfinals by winning her next match against Kimberly Birrell. Hibino lost in the last eight to Diana Shnaider.

2024–25: First French Open win in four years, out of top 200 At the Indian Wells Open, Hibino qualified and recorded her first win at this tournament defeating Venus Williams in three sets, before losing to 17th seed Veronika Kudermetova in the second round.

She qualified for the main draw of the 2024 US Open after three years of absence at this major event, losing to Caroline Wozniacki in the first round.

In October, alongside Makoto Ninomiya, Hibino was a runner-up at the Hong Kong 125 Open losing in the doubles final to Monica Niculescu and Elena-Gabriela Ruse.

At the 2025 French Open, she qualified for the main draw and defeated compatriot Moyuka Uchijima, recording her first major match win in close to four years.

National representation Hibino has played at the Fed Cup for Japan since 2016. She has played in ten ties, compiling an overall record of 6–5, playing only in singles. Her debut was when Japan was in Zone Group I along with India, Thailand, and Uzbekistan. Against all three teams, Hibino played one match but lost all of them. Her first match was against Nigina Abduraimova from Uzbekistan where she won the first set but was not able to finish the match in her favor. The following day, her team played against India. Given that her compatriot Eri Hozumi won the first match, a win from her would secure a team win over India. However, Hibino lost to Ankita Raina. Since her team lost to Uzbekistan they faced Thailand to be promoted to the play-offs. Hibino had a disappointing start to her match against Luksika Kumkhum, losing the first set 6–0 but then managed to make a comeback. For the place in the World Group II play-offs the next year, Japan faced Chinese Taipei. Hibino won the first set against Hsieh Su-wei but then lost the next two sets.

After one year of absence, she participated again at the Fed Cup. In Zone Group I, Hibino won all of her three matches. She started with a set loss against Thailand's Kumkhum but then won the following two. The same scenario then happened in the next match against South Korea's Han Na-Lae. The third one was against Hsu Chieh-yu from Chinese Taipei, which she won in straight sets. The following year, Japan faced Spain in World Group II. Hibino played in the opening match against Sara Sorribes Tormo and won in straight sets. Following a win and loss for Japan, Hibino had her chance to secure her team a spot in the World Group play-offs. However, she lost to Georgina García Pérez in three sets. Japan's situation improved in the play-offs against the Netherlands, when Hibino defeated Bibiane Schoofs, letting her win only three games to help Japan win the tie.

Playing style

Hibino prefers an aggressive style of play. After defeating Hsieh Su-wei in the quarterfinal at the 2019 Japan Women's Open, she described the match as 70 percent defense and 30 percent offense but stated that she has to be more aggressive. One of the signatures of her style of play is the use of drop shots. She prefers hardcourts, but her favorite tournament is Wimbledon that is played on grass. She uses a Yonex VCore 100 racket.

Performance timelines

Only main-draw results in WTA Tour, Grand Slam tournaments, Fed Cup/Billie Jean King Cup, and Olympic Games are included in win–loss records.

Singles Current through the 2025 season

Doubles Current through the end of 2023 season.

WTA Tour finals

Singles: 6 (3 titles, 3 runner-ups) LegendWTA 500 WTA 250 (3–3)Finals by surfaceHard (3–3)

Doubles: 7 (3 titles, 4 runner-ups) LegendWTA 500 WTA 250 (3–4)Finals by surfaceHard (3–3)Clay (0–1)

WTA 125 finals Doubles: 2 (runner-ups)

ITF Circuit finals Singles: 16 (10 titles, 6 runner-ups) Legend$100,000 tournaments (1–1)$50/60,000 tournaments (4–4)$25,000 tournaments (2–1)$10,000 tournaments (3–0)Finals by surfaceHard (7–5)Grass (2–0)Carpet (1–1)

Doubles: 17 (11 titles, 6 runner-ups) Legend$100,000 tournaments (6–0)$50/60,000 tournaments (2–4)$25,000 tournaments (1–2)$10/15,000 tournaments (2–0)Finals by surfaceHard (8–5)Clay (1–1)Grass (1–0)Carpet (1–0)

Wins over top-10 players PlayerRankEventSurfaceScore2020 1. Elina SvitolinaNo. 4 Hua Hin Championships, ThailandHardQF 6–4, 6–2 No. 84