Mumbai: For the camera, Naomi Osaka gave a full 360-degree view of her specially designed tennis shoes. And then the bejeweled blue Labubu doll she has dubbed “Arthur Flash.”
Japan’s Naomi Osaka reacts after her victory over USA’s Hailey Baptiste at the US Open. (AFP)
These were light-hearted conversations she doesn’t mind sharing on-court. What she does not like to divulge in much detail is tennis related. For instance, what her new coach Tomasz Wiktorowski is bringing to her game.
“I can’t give up my secrets,” she said at the Louis Armstrong Stadium, with a smile, after a 6-3, 6-1 win over Hailey Baptiste in their second round US Open match.
But in that 70-minute match on Thursday, Osaka gave glimpses of those changes, and just how effective it has been.
An aggressive baseliner, Osaka tends to play close to the baseline, taking away time from her opponents, even when receiving serve. But what has been seen so far at the US Open is the 27-year-old taking a few steps behind the baseline, giving her more scope for accuracy, and more time to load the big returns.
“I feel like with Tomasz we’ve been working a lot on my returns,” Osaka said, as quoted by WTA.com. “And I feel more confident. So I think that’s a really big point for me, because I feel like I was able to focus and kind of break back immediately when I needed to.”
In today’s era of women’s tennis, where headlines are more about the performance of Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, Coco Gauff, among others, Osaka is quietly playing her way back into form.
It was always on the cards though. After all, Osaka is a former world No.1 and a four-time Grand Slam champion in her own right.
Osaka skipped the entire 2023 season on maternity leave, only getting back to the pro tour in January 2024. She continued on the grind, patiently working her way back into fitness and form. But from once being a player expected to make deep runs in tournaments, especially hard court events, she had lost her place right at the top.
But the will to fight never faded. So much so that she decided to take a step back from the bigger tournaments to play a WTA 125-level event in Saint Malo, France in May. That tournament gave her a first title since she won the 2021 Australian Open (and a first-ever triumph on clay).
The will to improve saw employ Swiatek’s former coach Wiktorowski shortly after her third round loss at Wimbledon. And in their first tournament together, ranked 49 at the time, she beat four higher-ranked opponents en route to a runner-up finish at the WTA 1000 Canadian Masters earlier this month.
That result meant that at the US Open, she would be seeded at a Grand Slam for the first time since the Australian Open in 2022 when she was the defending champion.
At Flushing Meadows this year, the 23rd seed has put in some vintage performances, mixed with a few new tactics – particularly when receiving serve.
“Tomasz has talked to me a lot about the placement of my shots and not necessarily go for winners most of the time,” Osaka said in her post-match press conference.
The focus on accuracy, coupled with the deeper receiving position when facing serves, has resulted in Osaka winning 11 of the 14 break point opportunities she has had. And of the 54 second serves she faced in the first two rounds, she won 41.
It is still early in the tournament, but these numbers have shown her intent in getting back to where she once was. Coincidentally, for the hard-court specialist, she has shifted to a higher gear at the same venue she won her first Grand Slam title, in 2018.
But, she is not looking too far ahead.
“Honestly, I don’t really know (how deep she can go at the US Open),” Osaka said.
“I don’t make it my business to know anymore. I kind of just leave it up in the air. For me, I realise that I’ve done everything that I could. I’ve trained really hard. I practiced really hard. If it happens, it happens. I’m just playing match by match.”
The next one is against 15th seed Daria Kasatkina, a player who mixes power with trickery.
But Osaka has a new tool of her own. And momentum.
AloJapan.com