Photo credit: Darren Carroll/USTA
Naomi Osaka backed herself into a corner on clay—and is learning to power through it.
Empowered by her run to her maiden clay-court title at the WTA 125 in Saint-Malo last week, Osaka continues to clean up on dirt.
A focused Osaka fought back from 1-3 down in the second set streaking through five straight games to knock off reigning Olympic gold-medal doubles champion Sara Errani 6-2, 6-3 in her Rome opener today.
It is Osaka’s sixth straight clay-court today—the longest dirt winning streak of her career. The former No. 1 casts herself as a clay student not a clay-court specialist and says she’s trying to apply what she’s learned over the last couple of seasons to this clay campaign.
“I would say this clay court season's different because I'm coming into it with a lot more wins,” Osaka told the media in Rome after defeating Errani. “Obviously I would say I'm a lot more comfortable on clay now, but that's also from my experience of last year, too.
“I think I was really lucky to play some really good matches on clay last year. I had that in my mind when I'm playing in Saint-Malo and when I'm playing here. I think it's an accumulation of all of those.”
Osaka will face ninth-seeded Paula Badosa next in Rome.
Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka delivered one of her most dynamic clay-court performances at Roland Garros last May. Osaka earned a match point in the third set against reigning Roland Garros champion Iga Swiatek before the world No. 1 rallied for a 7-6(1), 1-6, 7-5 comeback victory.
Osaka, who says she’s generally averse to watching her past matches because “I start to overthink it and wonder if I was better back then”, shared she has gone back and watched her near-miss against Swiatek in Paris.
Upon further review, that match has been a red-clay revelation for Osaka. She says watching it again evoked an epiphany: clay-court tennis is a game of legs and learning to use her legs to power counter-strikes out of the corners has been a key to Osaka’s recent success.
“Obviously I have watched that match. For me, I feel like I didn't know this before, and I think I talked about it a little bit last year, but I feel like clay is very strength-reliant,” Osaka said. “I realized that going into the corners, just like pushing off, you need a lot of muscles to do that.
“I never realized that before. It's something that I prioritized this year and I think it's working. Even playing my match today, I was able to, I guess, hit a lot of really good shots just based off like my muscles in my legs.”
Muscle memory helped Osaka overcome all challengers in her WTA 125K win. Today, Osaka said memories of reading Hall of Famer Andre Agassi’s memoir Open inspired her during her title run last week.
Former No. 1 Agassi plummeted to world No. 141 during a disastrous 1997 campaign that saw him drop down to play a challenger against “hackers and has-beens. In other words my peers” in his hometown of Vegas.
In Open, Agassi recalled his Challenger experience being so humbling a few fans mocked him saying “Image IS Everything, eh buddy.”
“I was thinking more about Agassi 'cause I remember reading his book,” Osaka told the media in Rome. “There was a moment where I don't know if he had to play a challenger, but he was saying he was flipping his own scoreboards.
“Someone came and yelled, like, Image is everything. I would say that section of the book crossed my mind more.”
Following her first-round Madrid loss, Osaka said her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, urged her to play Saint-Malo to get more match play on clay.
Osaka, who says she has “really bad social skills”, said building trusting and communicating honestly with coach Patrick has helped her clay progress.
“I don't really like to talk to people if I have problems. I'd rather just solve it by myself,” Osaka said. “In that aspect, like, obviously with Patrick we talk, but sometimes I don't tell him exactly what I'm thinking.
“After Madrid, going into Saint-Malo, we had a conversation about me telling him exactly how I feel before going into matches. Even today I told him that I was nervous obviously because I want to do well here coming off of the win that I just had. So that definitely helped a lot.”