Quadruple Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka has shed light on her work with coach Tomasz Wiktorowski after reaching the fourth round at Wimbledon for the first time in her career.
The former world No.1 eased into the last 16 at The All England Club with a convincing 6-1, 6-3 win over Daria Kasatkina. Osaka has dropped just 15 games across three matches played so far at Wimbledon. In her latest match, she won 22 out of 27 points behind her first serve against the former top 10 player.
Osaka’s run coincides with her first grass swing working alongside Wiktorowski, who is the former coach of Agnieszka Radwanska and Iga Swiatek. The two started working together last summer and have made steady progress on the Tour, reaching two finals during their time together so far.
“I would say it’s going pretty well,” Osaka said of their partnership.
“I would say he challenges me a lot to think outside the box. Even coming into this grass season, we were doing a lot of things on the hard court because where I train, they don’t have a grass court. We were just doing a lot of different things.”
Coming into Wimbledon, Osaka reached her first Tour-level final on grass in Bad Bomburg. However, she retired in the title match due to injury. That tournament was the first she has played on the surface this season.
“It kind of made me understand grass court tennis a lot more,” she continued.
“I think when I was younger, I was a little bit more stubborn on how I wanted to play on this surface, but I realize it’s a lot more free-flowing.”
When comparing her setup to that on the clay, the 28-year-old explains that she has more freedom on the grass to trust herself.
“On grass, Tomasz doesn’t actually talk to me as much as he does on clay,” she revelled.
“He kind of just tells me to trust my instincts and trust myself going forward. If anything, he tells me to keep up the speed of my ball. So that’s kind of the plan that we’ve been having.
Osaka’s run to the fourth round has seen her play on Courts One, Two and Three. On a potential collision path with top seed Aryna Sabalenka in the next round, Centre Court could be awaiting her. Something she has mixed emotions about.
“Centre Court here for some reason might be the scariest Centre Court to me,” she said.
“Granted, I haven’t played on the Centre Court frequently. Going down those stairs, it’s the opening, like this huge dome. I feel more aware of it than any other Centre Court that I’ve ever played on.”
