Osaka, Kvitova set to meet in final
MELBOURNE, Australia — Naomi Osaka never made it past the fourth round at any of the first 10 Grand Slam tournaments of her tennis career. Now, still just 21, she’s suddenly on the verge of a second consecutive major championship. And the No. 1 ranking, too. Osaka moved one victory away from adding the Australian Open trophy to the one she collected 4 1/2 months ago by beating Serena Williams at the U.S. Open, using her smooth power to produce 15 aces and groundstroke winners at will while topping Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 in Thursday’s semifinals.
“I just told myself to regroup in the third set and just try as hard as I can,” said Osaka, who saved four break points in the last set and finished the match with a 115 mph ace.
“I was so scared serving second serves. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. Please!” Osaka said. “Somehow, I made it. I guess that’s experience.”
A day after erasing four match points and a 5-1 deficit in the third set to stun Williams in the quarterfinals, Pliskova could not produce the same kind of comeback. Instead it is Osaka, the only Japanese woman to win a major singles title, who will face two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova on Saturday. The winner will rise to the top of the WTA rankings for the first time; currently, Osaka is No. 4 and Kvitova is No. 6.
Osaka, who accumulated a 56-20 advantage in winners Thursday, extended her Slam run to 13 matches while putting a stop to Pliskova’s 10-0 start to the season. Osaka’s fourth-round finish at Melbourne Park a year ago was her best showing at a major until last year’s U.S. Open.
Two years ago, Kvitova missed the Australian Open altogether just weeks after her left hand was stabbed by an intruder at her home in the Czech Republic. Back at her best during what she calls her “second career,” the 28-year-old surged to a 7-6 (2), 6-0 semifinal victory against 35th-ranked Danielle Collins of the United States after Rod Laver Arena’s retractable roof was closed as the temperature soared toward 105 degrees.
Kvitova, who won Wimbledon in 2011 and ’14, reached her first major final since the December 2016 knife attack that led to hours of surgery on her left hand — the one she uses to hold her racket.
“I didn’t know even if I (was) going to play tennis again,” Kvitova said. “It’s been a long journey.”
In the first men’s semifinal, Rafael Nadal continued his relentless roll through the draw by defeating Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-4, 6-0. The 32-year-old Spaniard has not dropped a set as he bids for a second Australian Open title and 18th Grand Slam trophy overall.
Add the 20-year-old Tsitsipas to the list of youngsters Nadal has bullied on his way to his fifth final in Melbourne and 25th at all Slams.
Nadal needed all of 11 minutes Thursday to show Tsitsipas — and everyone else — that the kid’s upset of record-setting 20-time major champion Roger Federer was not going to be replicated.
Nadal broke Tsitispas in the match’s third game and then another five times, never facing a single break point himself until the very last game.
“It felt like a different dimension of tennis completely,” said the 14th-seeded Tsitsipas, a blank expression on his face. “He gives you no rhythm. He plays just a different game style than the rest of the players. He has this, I don’t know, talent that no other player has. I’ve never seen a player have this. He makes you play bad.”
Nadal will face either top-seeded Novak Djokovic or Lucas Pouille, who were to meet in the second semifinal Friday.