Given she is a four time hard court slam champion who has struggled on clay, few would have expected Naomi Osaka’s best tennis since returning to the tour to have come on the clay of Rome. Early signs in Madrid and Rouen were not good, with many expecting we might need to wait until the faster surfaces to see Osaka at her best.
After picking up her first Top 20 clay win against Marta Kostyuk, she earned a second with a superb performance against Daria Kasatkina. She broke 5 times in a 6-3 6-3 win over Daria Kasatkina as well as putting up great numbers on serve, most notably winning 94% of second serve points.
“It’s definitely more mental,” Osaka said after the win. “I could always do it. I’m a little impatient. Obviously when you hit a heavier ball, for me, I feel like I think about a moon ball. It didn’t really click until I was watching Nadal play and seeing how he actually accelerates so much when he’s doing that, knowing that a heavier ball sometimes is more difficult than a flatter shot.
Next up for the former No.1 is Qinwen Zheng. It’s very much a winnable clash for Osaka, especially if she maintains her new found patience and intelligence shotmaking.
