Naomi Osaka continued to roll through the draw at Australian Open 2021, beating former world No.4 Caroline Garcia 6-2 6-3 in Wednesday’s night session at Rod Laver Arena.
The build-up
Osaka says she finds it tough to sleep before first rounds and finals, but you would never know it based on her results.
She has yet to lose a Grand Slam final — triumphing at Melbourne Park in 2019 and twice at the US Open — and crushed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-1 6-2 in her opener this week.
MORE: All the scores from Day 3 at AO 2021
What a statement! The ever-dangerous Pavlyuchenkova narrowly missed out on a seeding this year, and made the quarterfinals at the Australian Open in three of her previous four visits.
Osaka could be considered the best hard court player in the world at the moment, extending her winning streak to 15 matches on Monday.
The last time she lost a hard-court outing came in Melbourne last season to Coco Gauff in the third round, a result that she said changed her mentality.
“I think just after losing here to Coco, because she is sort of the person that I never wanted to lose to in this situation, just being the defending champion, losing to her in such a high-profile match, I think it really shocked me,” Osaka said on Monday.
Garcia was tipped by Andy Murray for big things when she led Maria Sharapova by a set and 4-1 at the French Open in 2011. Sure enough, the former junior star won back-to-back titles in Beijing and Wuhan to finish at No.8 in the rankings in 2017.
Since then, her ranking dropped and now sits at 43.
But Garcia — who trained at Rafael Nadal’s academy last year — upset former world No.1 Karolina Pliskova at the French Open last year, and told reporters this week she still has hopes of winning a Grand Slam title.
Story of the match
Osaka set the tone in the first game by belting three aces, one on a second serve down the tee. Lady luck went against Garcia in the next game, with Osaka producing a double net cord winner for 30-30.
With Osaka being a great frontrunner, Garcia realistically needed to break first to take the set and possibly the match. But after Osaka held on at deuce for 2-1, Garcia dropped serve on a forehand long for 1-3.
Not the start the 27-year-old wanted, and the set got away from her quickly. Thirty-one minutes to be exact.
Garcia held at deuce in her first service game of the second — drawing applause from Osaka after an ace out wide — yet Osaka didn’t flinch on her own serve.
At one stage in the second set, the servers won 16 straight points. That ended at 3-2 in the second set, unfortunately for Garcia.
She thwarted a break point when Osaka erred on a backhand down the line but on a second chance in the game, a backhand error wide down the line from Garcia made it 4-2.
Osaka was now full of confidence. So much so that she unleashed a 195km/h serve down the middle to begin the next game.
Make that 16 straight wins now on hard courts, and altogether.
Key stats
Osaka crunched 10 aces, won 86 per cent of her first serve points and didn’t face a break point, after only being broken once against Pavlyuchenkova.
Analysis by Game Insight Group (GIG) showed that Garcia looks to use her forehand more than Osaka, but the Frenchwoman didn’t register a forehand winner in the entire encounter. Osaka tallied six.
What this means for Garcia
Seeing Osaka on the other side of the net proved to be a rough draw for Garcia, but her start to the 2021 season hasn’t been bad at all.
Osaka and Elise Mertens — the Australian Open 2018 semifinalist and last week’s winner at the Gippsland Trophy — are the two players to beat her.
Climbing the rankings would mean a return to being seeded at Grand Slams and thus avoiding the top contenders early.
What’s next for Osaka?
Gauff displayed a varied game when defeating Osaka last year, and the world No.3 meets another player in the third round capable of mixing things up in 27th seed Ons Jabeur.
The friends have never met in an official match.
“She’s really funny," Osaka said on court after the match.
"I don’t know if you guys watch any of her interviews. I think she is really funny and nice. I think the match I am going to play against her will be really difficult, but I’m looking forward to it."