[6] Additionally, she won the Austrian title by defeating her teammate Mayu Sekiya and a bronze medal at World Junior Championships.

In 2013, while competing in her quarterfinal match against Saina Nehwal at Malaysia Open, she suffered a severe knee injury in the 3rd game and remained out of International circuit for almost a year.

[9] On her way to returning to elite competition, she participated in her first tournament in November since her last in January 2013 at the China Premier event.

On her way to the final, she defeated Reigning World Champion Carolina Marín in the semifinal in 2 very one-sided games.

[16] At the Malaysian Superseries event, she played the longest ever Women's singles match against Wang Shixian in quarterfinal which lasted for whopping 111 minutes.

She won her first Superseries title at Japan Open in the final defeating her colleague Akane Yamaguchi with score of 21–18, 21–12.

[18] At the World Championships in Jakarta seeded 9th, she failed to get past Thai Porntip Buranaprasertsuk in 1st round having lost to her twice before.

On her path through without dropping a single game, she defeated all of her opponents namely Saina Nehwal, Tai Tzu-ying and top seed Carolina Marín.

[21] In 2016, she won the prestigious All England Open on her Birthday after defeating Wang Shixian in the final with score 21–11, 16–21, 21–19, and thereby became the first Japanese women's singles player to lift this title in 39 years since Hiroe Yuki's triumph back in 1977.

After defeating Canada's Rachel Honderich and teammate Aya Ohori, she had an uphill task against Carolina Marín of Spain in the quarterfinals.

[4] After her triumph at the World stage, she also reached the final of Korean Open Premier Superseries, in which P. V. Sindhu managed to beat Okuhara.

[27] She went to World Championships in Nanjing as defending champion but lost to the player she beat in the 2017 final, P. V. Sindhu, in 2 straight games in the quarterfinals.

She defeated He Bingjiao and Ratchanok Intanon; reached the final of this tournament once more and set her encounter with P. V. Sindhu.

In a repeat clash of 2017 World Championships final, she was defeated 7–21, 7–21 by the Indian player, henceforth settled for the silver medal.

[40] She was the runner-up in 6th straight tournament, after her defeat in the hands of Chen Yufei in Fuzhou China Open with the scores 21–9, 12–21, 18–21.

[41] She took part in World Tour Finals in Guangzhou where she had best of starts; defeating all her opponents of group stage.

Okuhara won 2020 Denmark Open tournament after surpassing 3rd seed Carolina Marín in 2 games with scores 21–19, 21–17.