MELBOURNE, Australia — The reigning United States Open champion, Naomi Osaka, was serving to extend her third-round match against Hsieh Su-Wei when she rolled her right foot while running for a ball and tumbled to the ground, prompting the chair umpire to ask if she was O.K.
“No,” Osaka replied, but she was laughing.
Osaka, 21, who was born in Japan and is based in Florida, had already squared herself once, picking her game up after dropping the first set and falling behind 2-4, 0-40 in the second against Taiwan’s Hsieh, a big-seed slayer with a bedeviling slice.
By rising to hold off Hsieh 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, Osaka showed that she is more than O.K. She proved that she is maturing in front of everybody’s eyes like a Polaroid picture.
Osaka’s round of 16 opponent is Anastasija Sevastova, whom she defeated in three sets — after dropping the first — in the quarterfinals of a tuneup event in Brisbane last month. Osaka struggled with her composure early on against Sevastova in what turned out to be a prelude to a hissy fit.
In a straight-sets semifinal loss to Lesia Tsurenko, Osaka came unstrung. She committed 26 unforced errors, was broken three times and sulked between shots in a display that she apologized for later on her Twitter account.
“Had the worst attitude on the court today,” Osaka wrote. “Sorry to everyone that watched. I keep telling myself to be more mature but seems it’ll take a while.”
Fast forward to Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne two weeks later. In the first set against Hsieh, Osaka produced 20 unforced errors and was broken three times. So upset was Osaka by her start that she kicked her racket on the changeover before the second set, an act of petulance that resulted in her receiving a code violation.
“Of course I would have preferred not to do that, and I’m really sorry that I did,” Osaka said. “But hopefully I’ll learn from that moment.”
It seemed that Osaka had learned nothing from Brisbane when she stood five points from defeat. But a funny thing happened on her way to another dispiriting result. Osaka laughed at her plight, and that moment of mirth acted like a release valve, letting out all the pressure that had been building since she dispatched Serena Williams in straight sets in New York to win her first major title.
Instead of feeling, as she put it, “that either I win the match or I die,” Osaka relaxed and started playing calmer, smarter points, blasting her way into the tournament’s second week.
“She was just playing so well,” Osaka said, referring to Hsieh, “and I think I got overwhelmed. And then early in the second set I tried doing things that I know isn’t necessarily my game, like I was trying to hit higher balls and I don’t even practice doing that.”
She added, “Then after a while, I just started thinking that I’m in a Grand Slam. I shouldn’t be sad; I’m playing against a really great player so I should just enjoy my time and try and put all my energy into doing the best that I can on every point.”
In both her title runs in 2018, at Indian Wells and Flushing Meadows, Osaka won every first set. Her overall record last year when she lost the first set was 2-19. So she is pleased to have already posted two victories, against Sevastova and Hsieh, this month after slow starts.
“I think the more matches that I play like this, the tougher ones, then maybe as I go on it won’t seem as hard,” Osaka said, adding: “I’m happy with how I fought. For me, that’s one of the biggest things I always thought I could improve, because it sort of seems like before I would accept defeat in a way.”
Hsieh presented a stout test because the bigger the stage, the better she seems to play. At last year’s tournament, Hsieh upset the third-seeded Garbiñe Muguruza and the former women’s world No. 2 Agnieszka Radwanska before taking the former champion and ex-women’s world No. 1 Angelique Kerber to three sets.
But as Osaka showed against Serena Williams in their U.S. Open final, she too embraces the big stage. “There is the most attention during Grand Slams, and more people come out than anywhere else,” Osaka said. “So definitely it makes me really happy, and I try to sort of channel that in my tennis.”
When Osaka is home, she trains at the academy in Boca Raton, Fla., run by the 18-time Grand Slam singles champion Chris Evert and her brother, John.
“She’s very nice,” Osaka said, referring to Evert. “Whenever I do see her, she always comes up and says a lot of encouraging words, so I’m really grateful for her.”
Osaka’s eyebrows danced as she divulged a secret. Whatever advice Evert offers, Osaka absorbs it without question. For some reason, she added slyly, her coach, Sascha Bajin, and Evert can say the exact same thing, but it really resonates when Evert says it.
“Not that I’m, like, ragging on Sascha,” Osaka said, grinning, “but it feels like I should listen to her more in a way because — oh, I’m going to get so much hate — I have seen what she did and she’s also played. So it’s a little bit more believable.”
Before the tournament began, Evert described Osaka as “reliable.” And here Osaka is, right on schedule, two victories from a potential rematch with Williams in the semifinals.
Reliable? Yeah, that’s believable.
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