Naomi Osaka booked her place in the last 16 of a WTA 1000 event for the third time this year after coming through a marquee encounter between former Grand Slam champions in the Omnium Banque Nationale third round, defeating No. 22 seed Jelena Ostapenko 6-2, 6-4 in 1 hour and 12 minutes.
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Osaka has frequently referred to Ostapenko as her “favorite player”, both because the Latvian was the standard-setter for their generation as the first 1997-born player to win a major, and for her considerable entertainment value. But she hasn’t let this respect get in the way of taking care of business when it comes to their on-court matchup: Osaka has now won all three of their meetings in straight sets.
The former World No. 1, who is playing her first tournament with new coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, will next face another Latvian, former US Open semifinalist Anastasija Sevastova, who dethroned defending champion Jessica Pegula in three sets. Osaka leads the head-to-head with Sevastova 3-2.
Keys to the match: As two of the biggest hitters on the Hologic WTA Tour, Osaka and Ostapenko both racked up crowd-pleasing winners — the latter tallying 17 to Osaka’s 14. But the difference showed in the quality of their serve and the accuracy of their hitting. Ostapenko won just 50% of her first-serve points compared to Osaka’s 71%, and committed 37 unforced errors to Osaka’s 13. The former Roland Garros champion’s four double faults also proved costly, including one facing set point in the first set.
Osaka cited her serve as the most important factor afterwards.
“Granted, she broke me a couple times,” she continued. “But she’s a really good returner, so I can’t take that personally … I went in there knowing she’s a great player, and if I give her a chance she’s going to hit a winner on me, so I just tried to keep my pace and stay as solid as I could.”
Osaka also impressed with some lesser-seen aspects of her game. Her defense had been on song in the previous round as she escaped Liudmila Samsonova from two match points down, and she was able to pull off similar forehand passes on the run to deny Ostapenko. A pair of superb volleys in the first set also helped set the tone for Osaka’s match.
Down a break in both sets, Ostapenko was able to produce some breathtaking runs of points to get back on serve at 3-2. But she could not sustain the momentum on her own delivery, immediately dropping serve again both times.
AloJapan.com