At the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, Naomi Osaka is making a name for both herself and Japanese tennis.
Taking on Karolina Pliskova in the quarter-finals, the 20-year-old powered her way to a one-sided 6-2, 6-3, win. Breaking her rival six times in the match, Osaka benefited from an error-stricken performance of her opponent. Which featured a total of 29 unforced errors during what was both cold and windy conditions.
“I knew that I had to really pay a lot of attention when I was serving, because it could have turned into one of those matches where, like, holding serve is very important.” Said Osaka.
“But when I got the break in the first game, I sort of shifted a little bit more attention to returning, because it seemed like she was a little bit unconfident on her serve today.”
“I tried to focus a lot on returning and just making her play a lot of balls.”
Indian Wells has provided Osaka with a platform to live up to her rising star status. At 44th in the world, she is currently one of only four players aged under 20 in the top 50. Earlier this year she reached the fourth round of a grand slam for the first time at the Australian Open and was a quarter-finalist at the Dubai Tennis Championships. It is due to this why Osaka is reluctant to call her run in California a ‘breakthrough.’
“I feel like this year I have been more consistent. So yes and no at the same time, because I feel like all the matches I have played at the start of the year, they have sort of been leading up to this.” She explained.
“I just want to keep this level throughout the entire year, because that’s what the good players do.”
Besides her own achievements, Osaka is the first Japanese player in history to reach the last four of a Premier mandatory event. Although the youngster is eager to continue rewriting the record books.
“I’m happy, but also I feel like it’s cooler to go to the finals and win it, so I’m going to try to do that.” She commented about the latest milestone. “I feel like I want to break records for male and female. I’m coming for Kei (Nishikori).”
A clash with world No.1 Simona Halep awaits in the semifinals. Halep came through her quarter-final match with a three-set win over Petra Martic. Osaka is yet to defeat the Romanian on the tour, but has managed to take a set off her in two of their three meetings.
“I made a lot of unforced errors while not really going for the shots that I had.” She said about her last match against Halep. “So I’m just trying to commit more and also playing longer rallies at the same time.”
Osaka is the lowest ranked played left in the women’s draw and the only one yet to win a WTA title.
