By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Saturday March 9, 2024
Indian Wells – She’s simply eight months faraway from giving beginning to her daughter, however already four-time main and 2018 BNP Paribas Open champion and former World No.1 Naomi Osaka is wanting like a participant who could also be destined to return to the highest of the sport.
Osaka made an announcement on Saturday on the Indian Wells Tennis Backyard as she outpaced No.15-seeded Liudmila Samsonova in a hard-hitting battle of heavyweight ball strikers to win 7-5, 6-3, and advance to the third spherical, the place Elise Mertens waits.
Osaka has made some extent of engaged on her returns, and getting extra snug in tough conditions on the court docket, and he or she seemed good in each regards on Saturday as she excelled within the tense moments and navigated a really difficult opening set by which she went from a break as much as a break down and ultimately gained the ultimate three video games to shut it out.
“Positively I feel match play is absolutely necessary for me and simply getting in sure conditions and never feeling like I am uncertain of what to do,” she stated. “However I undoubtedly felt like I used to be extra assured immediately with the set level and simply sort of trusting myself and figuring out that it doesn’t matter what occurs, go for my pictures and do not dwell life with remorse.”
Osaka struck the ball with function, and transformed 4 of her seven break factors.
Her all the time stable second serve was simply that, as she gained 67 of second-serve factors and ultimately received by means of the problem of the damaging Russian with relative ease.
It wasn’t her most dominant type, however given the truth that the 26-year-old is barely two months into her comeback, it needs to be thought-about a significant success – the smile on her face at match level advised that story.
“I simply wish to have much more enjoyable on the court docket,” Osaka mirrored. “In Australia I used to be actually onerous on myself and I discovered myself probably not celebrating simply being on the court docket. So I feel on this event, I simply actually needed to emphasise that I do not anticipate myself to win each match, however I wish to have enjoyable and benefit from the moments, whereas I can.”