MELBOURNE, Australia — Naomi Osaka defeated Petra Kvitova, 7-6 (2), 5-7, 6-4, on Saturday to win the Australian Open and attain the No. 1 ranking in women’s tennis.
It was the second consecutive major title for the fourth-seeded Osaka, 21, who defeated Serena Williams in straight sets at the United States Open in September. The last woman to win back-to-back Grand Slam singles titles was Williams, who claimed the first three majors in 2015.
Osaka — born in Japan and raised in the U.S. by a Japanese mother and a Haitian father — is the first player representing Japan to be No. 1 in either the WTA or ATP rankings.
Unlike at the United States Open, where Osaka lost only one set on her way to winning the title, she was extended to three sets in three of her first six matches in Melbourne: by Hsieh Su-Wei in the third round, Anastasija Sevastova in the fourth and Karolina Pliskova in the semifinals.
Osaka needed a third set again on Saturday. She held three match points with Kvitova serving at 3-5 in the second set and could not convert any of them. Osaka then served for the match and was broken. Kvitova won four straight games to take the set.
But Osaka regrouped, breaking Kvitova in third game of the final set and holding on for the championship.
Osaka’s coach, Sascha Bajin, said the early tests had strengthened her resolve and fortified her confidence.
The trophy presentation for Osaka’s title in New York was marred by fans booing controversial rulings against Williams by the chair umpire Carlos Ramos. On Saturday there were only resounding cheers as Li Na, the first Grand Slam singles champion from Asia, presented Osaka with the trophy.
It is not easy to follow a first Grand Slam title with a second, as Osaka’s vanquished opponent can attest. Kvitova, now 28, was the age that Osaka is today when she won her first Wimbledon championship in 2011. She said she struggled with the heightened attention and expectations that came with the title. Kvitova, who was the eighth seed in Melbourne, won a second major, also at Wimbledon, but had to wait three years — not four months, like Osaka.
Kvitova was playing her first Grand Slam final since she sustained career-threatening injuries while fighting off a knife-wielding intruder in her Czech Republic apartment in late 2016. She needed an operation to repair nerve and tendon damage in all five fingers of her dominant left hand and missed the first five months of the 2017 season.
Osaka took only two weeks off at the end of 2018, which spoke to her appetite for improvement, Bajin said. Osaka’s desire, combined with a versatile, aggressive game, have spirited her to the top of the women’s game in dizzying fashion. She is the first woman since Jennifer Capriati in 2001 to win her first two major titles back to back.
Osaka, who came into this tournament last year ranked No. 72, said: “When you’re little, you watch the Grand Slams, you watch all the players play legendary matches here. For me, this is the most important tournament. There’s only four of them a year, so of course I want to do the best that I can.”
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