Camila Osorio cheers on team Colombia in World Cup qualifying

Camila Osorio enjoyed a dream start to her off-season, sharing her first experience watching the Colombian national football team compete in 2026 World Cup qualifying on social media.

“What a thrill we experienced today,” the top-ranked Colombian tennis star wrote on Instagram on Friday. “I hope to repeat it many more times!”

Team Colombia is aiming to make their seventh appearance in World Cup competition, having last appeared in 2018, when they reached the Round of 16. Their best result came in 2014, when they made it to the quarterfinals after not qualifying since 1998.

In the meantime, Osorio has been flying the Colombian flag proudly since bursting onto the scene with a junior US Open victory in 2019. She debuted on the WTA tour the following year and thrilled the home fans with a first title at home in Bogota.

She peaked just outside the Top 30 in 2022 but enjoyed more career milestones in 2023, reaching the fourth round of the Internazionali BNL d’Italia with a first Top 5 victory, defeating world No. 4 Caroline Garcia in straight sets.

Her most dramatic moment of the season came at Roland Garros, when she bounced back from a heartbreaking loss in qualifying to make a dramatically late entry as a lucky loser.

“I consider myself pretty lucky in general,” she explained at the time, “like something will happen that I wasn’t thinking would, it’s like the good vibes are coming my way. But in this situation, it was like, ‘I think I’m a good person; how can this be happening?’ I was crying a lot.”

Osorio brought some of that luck to team Colombia, who edged past Brazil, 2-1, at the Estadio Metropolitano Roberto Meléndez in front of 44,604 fans in Barranquilla. Might that luck hold in their next match against Paraguay on Monday?