Naomi Osaka claimed her fourth Grand Slam title with a 6-4 6-3 win over US Jennifer Brady in the Australian Open women’s final. The Japanese 23-year-old player added this win to the previous three Major trophies she won four of the past six Majors at the 2019 Australian Open and at the 2018 and 2020 US Open on hard court.
“I am really happy right now. I think this is a moment that I have been working for during the entire preseason. It’s weird when you get to that final point, you start trembling because you can think of the “what-ifs”. I feel like I am living in a”what-if”.
Osaka has become the first woman since Monica Seles in the early 1990s to win each of her first four Grand Slam final matches. She has become the third player overall in more than a half a century to achieve this feat after Seles and Roger Federer.
Osaka beat Brady in their previous head-to-head match in the 2020 US Open semifinal.
“Tonight I felt like tonight’s match was more of a mental battle. I think we were both nervous. Of course, I can’t speak for her, but I was extremely nervous. I honestly just told myself before the match, I am not going to play well. I should not put pressure on myself to play perfectly., but just go out there and fight for every point. The outcome is whatever it wants to be, but I can live with the fact that I tried very hard. You don’t go into a final wanting to be the runner-up. For me, I feel like every opportunity that I play a Slam is an opportunity to win a Slam, so I think maybe I put that pressure on myself too much, but honestly it’s working out in my favour right now”.
Osaka took the opportunity to thank the fans, who attended today’s Australian Open final, but were absent at last September’s US Open due to the global pandemic.
“I didn’t play my last Grand Slam with fans, so just to have this energy, it really means a lot. Thank you very much for coming. I feel like playing a Grand Slam right now is a super privilege. It’s something I won’t take for granted”, said Osaka during the post-match trophy presentation.
Earlier at this tournament Osaka was on the verge of losing in the fourth round, where she saved two match points against Garbine Muguruza, before beating Su-Wei Hsieh, Serena Williams and Jennifer Brady.
Osaka becomes the fourth player after Caroline Wozniacki, Angelique Kerber and Li Na to win the Australian Open title in the last decade after saving match points.
Osaka becomes the 16th woman in the Open Era and only the fourth active player to win four Grand Slam singles titles. The other three players still in activity who achieved this feat are Serena and Venus Williams and Kim Clijsters.
Mats Wilander said on Eurosport that Osaka could win ten Grand Slam titles, if she stays healthy.
“I like to take things, not big picture. I like to live in the moment. It’s an honour that Mats Wilander said that, but I don’t want to weigh myself myself down the pressure and expectations. I know that the people that I am playing are the best players in the world, and, if the time comes to win another Grand Slam, it will come. But for right now I can now control what I can control, and that’s working now and giving myself opportunities”.
Thanks to her triumph at Melbourne Park Osaka will rise to world number 2 player in the world behind Ashleigh Barty, but the Japanese player is set to dominate world tennis in the years to come.
“Honestly, I don’t really think about the ranking at all. I don’t play the most tournaments in the tour. I just want to do well in all of the tournaments that I play. My goal is to be consistent this year, not to have a huge drop-off randomly in the middle section like June, July, you know, how I usually do, but I don’t want to think too much about the rankings. It will come if I play well, and that’s what I tell myself”.
Osaka is the fourth player of either gender since the Open Era began in 1968 to claim each of the first four Grand Slam finals on the same surface. Most recently Rafael Nadal lifted four titles at Roland Garros from 2005 to 2008 and at Wimbledon in 2008 after an epic final against Roger Federer and in 2010.
Osaka will continue working hard with her coach Wim Fissette to achieve her next goal to win Roland Garros and Wimbledon, the two Grand Slam titles, that are still missing from her trophy cabinet.
“Hopefully I can win my first non hard-court title on clay, because it’s the one that’s sooner. For me, I feel like I have to get comfortable on those surfaces. That’s the key thing that I didn’ play juniors, so I didn’t grow up playing on grass at all. I honestly think I would have better luck on clay, because I think last year I didn’t play bad at all. It’s just something that I have to get more used to”.
Brady, who was aiming to become the second consecutive US player to win the Australian Open title after Sofia Kenin, was the first to congratulate Osaka.
“I would like to congratulate Naomi on another Grand Slam title. She is such an inspiration to us all and what she is doing for the game is amazing in getting the sport out there and I hope young girls at home are watching and are inspired by what she is doing”, said Brady.
Despite the defeat in the Melbourne title match after enduring hard quarantine in the weeks before the Australian Open, Brady was happy with her first Grand Slam final experience.
“The final did not go the way that i wanted, but I would say it was exciting to be out there. I enjoyed every single minute playing in front of fans in my first Grand Slam final, and I hope there is many more. I knew I was going to be nervous, but towards the middle of the first set I started to get a little bit more comfortable and then I just did not feel like I was playing my best tennis out there, which is unfortunate. I came a little bit nervous in the beginning”, admitted Brady during the post-match press conference.
Brady is confident that the goal of winning a Grand Slam title in the future is within her reach.
“I think I belong at this level. Winning a Grand Slam is totally achievabale. It’s within reach. Playing out there, obviously I was nervous, did not go my way, but at the same time coming off the court, I was, like, okay, that feels a little bit normal. It felt different than what I was expecting it to feel like. If you were to ask me maybe a year ago, I would not think it’s possible or it would feel like it’s going to Mars. After the final I have mixed feelings. I am pretty proud of myself, my team, for what we achieved here. We came here and I achieved my first Grand Slam final. I am walking away with the runner-up trophy, not the winner’s trophy, so that’s a little bit sad, but I would say I am pretty happy with my performance over the past couple of weeks. I should have capitalized on the fact that she wasn’t really many first serves, and I think that’s a huge weapon of her. It’s a bit reassuring knowing that also maybe she was feeling a bit nervous. We are both humans, not robots. You can have bad days, great days. In the end I think maybe the better player usually wins”.
