Osaka sweats out another clay challenge
PARIS Naomi Osaka is grinding her way through the French Open the hard way.
To cling onto her quest for a third consecutive Grand Slam title, the top-ranked Osaka again had to rally from first-set woes to beat former No. 1 Victoria Azarenka 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 Thursday in the second round.
Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic also advanced with straight-set wins.
Osaka considered herself unfortunate to be drawn against Azarenka and the powerful, accurate tennis produced by the 29-year-old Belarusian playing in her 12th French Open showed why. Although now ranked No. 43 and without a major title since winning the Australian Open in 2012 and 2013, Azarenka took a 4-0 lead on Court Suzanne Lenglen and kept Osaka under constant pressure. “I got rolled,” Osaka said. But as she did against firstround opponent Anna Karolina Schmiedlova, Osaka again proved her resilience.
“I didn’t stop trying at all,” Osaka said. “Every point was kind of like pedal to the metal.”
Osaka’s next opponent, 42ndranked Katerina Siniakova, hasn’t been past the third round in her 18 previous Grand Slam tournaments.
Williams will play Sofia Kenin, an American ranked No. 35, in the third round. The 23-time major champion defeated Japanese qualifier Kurumi Nara 6-3, 6-2 to advance.
Djokovic notched up another career milestone: his son Stefan watched him play at Roland Garros for the first time as he beat No. 104 Henri Laaksonen 6-1, 6-4, 6-3.
Djokovic will play 147th-ranked Salvatore Caruso of Italy in the third round.
Meanwhile, Ottawa’s Gabriela Dabrowski and China’s Yifan Xu won their opening women’s doubles match 6-1, 1-6, 6-2.
Then she and Croatia’s Mate Pavic won their mixed doubles match 6-4, 7-6 (3).