Second Slam leaves softly-spoken Osaka on top of the world
THE journey from nowhere to world number one has been short and very sweet for Naomi Osaka, the new superstar that women’s tennis has long been searching for.
Having been ranked 70 a year ago she finds herself a double Grand Slam champion, and squinting into the glare of global recognition after playing another brilliant final that tested her on every level.
It took two gigantic bites for her to beat Petra Kvitova 7-6 5-7 6-4. This was quite some follow up on a US Open triumph that got somewhat overlooked due to the behaviour of her opponent that night in New York.
The match could have been over an hour before it was actually completed after she failed to nail three match points at 5-3 in the second set. What she displayed, ultimately, was the kind of composure that is uncoachable and which true champions have within themselves, as seen against Serena Williams in New York.
The wider impact on tennis of the 21-year-old’s success will be profound. Asia has its first number one of either sex, and while Osaka the tennis player was made in America this will further embed her stardom in the land of her birth, where her maternal grandparents still live.
She is still not entirely comfortable speaking Japanese, but then as she pointed out at the start of the victory speech, public speaking is not really her thing in any language. That she is fluent in tennis is beyond doubt, an enormous natural talent honed in Florida’s tennis academies.
Osaka had taken herself off court following the second set and admitted there were a few tears at the time: ‘I told myself not to be immature,’ she said later in her deadpan manner.
It was, naturally, a far warmer atmosphere than at Flushing Meadows: ‘In New York most of the crowd was for Serena. Here they were split a little bit. I felt like I didn’t want to have any regrets, I could have looked back on this and probably cried. I don’t think it was drama, the match points were on her serve. I just played a third set if you call that drama.’
The well-documented journey to this final of her opponent could hardly have been more different, and in some ways this match was meant to conclude a supreme tale of redemption.
Barely two years after a horrendous knife attack in her apartment, which saw her racket-wiedling hand badly slashed, it was something of a miracle that she made it this far at all.
Kvitova almost pulled it off, and also had enough chances to have won this in straight sets had Osaka been less resolute. She became emotional on court when thanking her team ‘for sticking with me when we didn’t know I would be able to hold a racket again.’
She added: ‘It’s painful, for sure. I don’t know how long will take me to get over it. ‘When I look back, I did have my chances in the first set when I had 40Love on her serve. But I think I already won two years ago. So for me, it’s amazing. I think I still don’t really realize that I played the final.
‘I wanted to be back on my best level probably as I played before. I knew it will be very, very difficult because my hand, it’s not 100 per cent, and never will be. It’s just how it is. I’m just trying to take maximum from the minimum.’ Aside from Serena Williams Osaka is the first female player to win Grand Slams back-toback since Kim Clijsters in 2010, and some kind of order has been restored
It looks certain that she will win many more Major titles, and eventually get used to the winner’s speeches that currently represent some kind of ordeal. ‘I forgot to smile,’ she
admitted.