Naomi Osaka recovered from a set down to beat Coco Gauff at the Western and Southern Open in her first WTA tour match since May.

The Japanese star took time away from the game earlier this year to focus on her mental health and made her return to competitive tennis at the Olympics earlier this month.

Osaka could only reach the third-round in Tokyo and admitted to struggling with the pressure of playing at a home Games.

However, she held her nerve this time around in Cincinnati, fighting back to claim a deserved victory over teenage sensation Gauff.

The 23-year-old addressed the media afterwards in just her second press conference since boycotting press duties at Roland Garros.

In her first one back earlier this week, Osaka was reduced to tears after a question concerning her reluctance to speak to the press despite her huge media profile.

She seemed more at ease this time around though and spoke of how challenging it was playing against an opponent of Gauff’s calibre.

"It's definitely been a while since I played a tough opponent in a three-set match,'' she said.

"It was definitely really tough, but I feel really good right now. I'm super excited to play another match."

The four-time major winner also addressed why she didn’t want to speak to the media at the French Open earlier this season.

"I wonder what affected me... made me not want to do media?" she questioned.

"I'm wondering if I was scared because sometimes I would see headlines of players losing and then the headline the next day would be like 'a collapse' or 'they're not that great anymore'.

"The choice to go out there and play, to go see fans, the people that are coming out and watching you play, that itself is an accomplishment and I'm not sure when along the way I started desensitising that.

"It started not being an accomplishment for me so I felt like I was very ungrateful on that fact."

Osaka elaborated further and opened up on how tough it was to deal with the expectation of playing at a home Olympics, combined with the tough restrictions imposed on athletes.

"I think definitely this whole Covid thing was really stressful with the bubbles and not seeing people and not having the interactions."

Yet, seeing the state of the world at the moment and everything going on in Haiti, which has just been hit by a devastating earthquake, has made Osaka reflect on how fortunate she is to be in her position.

“Seeing the state of the world, how everything is in Haiti and Afghanistan right now is definitely really crazy, and for me to just be hitting a tennis ball in the United States right now and have people come and watch me play is... I would want to be myself in this situation rather than anyone else in the world."

Osaka’s father was born in Haiti and the star has revealed she’ll donate all her winnings from this tournament to the country’s relief fund.

For now, though, her focus is on her next game against Switzerland’s Jil Teichmann in the round of 16 tomorrow.