Osaka continues steamrolling foes
She says she has lots more to prove after fourth Slam title
Naomi Osaka already is a star at age 23. She has the four Grand Slam titles, the record-breaking endorsement deals and the willingness to speak her mind to prove it.
Now the question is: Where does she go from here?
Osaka won her fourth title in her past eight appearances at a Slam, emerging from what initially was a tight Australian Open final and pulling away by grabbing six consecutive games to beat Jennifer Brady 6-4, 6-3 on Saturday in Melbourne, Australia
With strong serving that produced six aces, Osaka improved to 4-0 in major finals, the first woman to start her career that way since Monica Seles did it 30 years ago. For Osaka, that is part of a 12-0 record in the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals at the majors.
“She played really well when she had to,” Brady said. “She hit good shots when she needed them.”
Osaka, the 2020 AP Female Athlete of the Year, is also on a 21-match winning streak that dates to last season. That includes a championship at last year’s U.S. Open. She also won the
U.S. Open in 2018, and the Australian Open in 2019.
It was telling that the second question posed to Osaka at the news conference following her 6-4, 6-3 victory over Jennifer Brady in the Australian
Open final Saturday — after she took a sip of celebratory bubbly that she said made her “feel a little bit funny” — was about turning in better performances at Wimbledon
and the French Open.
After all, each of her major championships came on hard courts at Melbourne Park or the U.S. Open. She never has been past the third round at the All England Club or Roland Garros.
Even more revealing was Osaka’s response.
Asked whether her first non-hardcourt Slam trophy will come on clay or grass, she said: “Hopefully clay, because it’s the one that’s sooner.”
She is not about biding her time or patient improvement.
And she’s been thinking about where she needs to improve.
“It was one of her goals this year to play well outside of the hard courts. She’s still very young. It’s time to grow on those surfaces. She also believes she can do well and, I’m sure, with the right preparation, with a few, maybe, tactical (and) technical adjustments, we’re going to do well,” said her coach, Wim Fissette. “She’s the person that wants to grow.”
Part of what makes Osaka special is embracing challenges and knowing what she stands for. That’s been the case off the court and on.
With a racket in her hand, it’s about, as Fissette put it, being able to “love big matches and big moments.”
Osaka wanted to face 23-time major champion Serena Williams in the semifinals, for example.
No fear there.
“She was like when I bring my kids to the toy store: They are very excited. And Naomi was excited to go on court with Serena. It’s just beautiful to see,” Fissette said. “At the end, this is what you train for, right? To be on the biggest stage with the best player of all time, Serena.”
Away from the game, Osaka says, it took time to find her voice and express her views.
She was born in Japan to a Japanese mother and Haitian father, and she moved to the United States when she was 3. Last August, she was the first tennis pro to join athletes from other sports in walking out to protest the police shooting of a Black man in Wisconsin.
“Before I am an athlete,” Osaka tweeted at the time, “I am a black woman.”
On her way to the U.S. Open title in September, Osaka wore masks bearing the names of seven Black victims of violence to draw attention to racism and police brutality.
On Saturday, Osaka was asked whether there was a message she wanted associated with her latest triumph, which made her 4 for 4 in Slam finals.
“Honestly, for me, when everything happened in New York, I got really scared, because I felt like it put me into this light that was a non-athletic light that I’ve never been in before,” she said. “So I feel like there is a lot of topics that people suddenly started asking me about that I completely didn’t know about at all. For me, I only like to talk when I’m knowledgeable about the subject or at least know, like, one tiny grain of what I’m about to start talking about. So for me, I just came into this tournament just thinking purely about tennis.”
And yet, in the aftermath of winning the trophy, she was ready to think about a larger role, too.
“Hopefully I play long enough to play a girl that said that I was once her favorite player or something,” Osaka said.