Naomi Osaka Survives A First Round Scare--And She Needed It

First-Round Trouble for Osaka

Relatively unknown to the average tennis fan, Anna Karolína Schmiedlová from Slovakia made everyone sit up and take note of the troubles she was causing Osaka. Or was Osaka just playing badly? Probably.

Her opponent wasn’t beating her by employing superior tactics. Osaka took a frightening lot of time to find her groove. The unforced error count for the Japanese woman was unusually high, albeit she was hitting a truckload of winners as well. Most of these errors came off service returns as she went for a little extra, which may have paid off at times but more often than not sailed long.

Osaka doesn’t possess an extended swing on her forehand side, so when she moves up the court to return serves, she gets in trouble as she can’t get a good enough contact on the ball. On the backhand side, though, she returns as well as anyone so no problems there.

Luck was favoring the World No. 1. Serving for the match at 6-5 30-15, Schmiedlová’s serve just caught the back line and bounced extremely awkwardly. However, Osaka just managed to return the ball, catching Schmiedlová off guard–so her backhand landed wide. A pivotal point in the context of the match–instead of two match points, Schmiedlová would go on to lose the game and the subsequent tiebreak.

Osaka was thinking more clearly and her shots started to find its mark with precision. She played closer to the baseline and varyied her backhands with lots of topspin, which is very unlike Osaka.

The third set was a blink and you miss it set, with the Japanese woman pummeling the Slovak’s serve and committing fewer errors to close out a highly entertaining match.

Is there a need to worry?

On the contrary, this match might just be what Osaka needed the most. With the enormous pressure of being the top seed and all the talk surrounding her Grand Slam streak, the 21-year-old deals with it quite well. Until the second-set tiebreak however, it looked like Osaka just wasn’t mentally present. But then she turned up–and how! Probably still not reaching her best, she found a way, adapted, and played like a World No. 1. In the end, that’s what mattered the most and she’ll be relieved to not succumb to a first round exit.

Naomi Osaka hasn’t quite been her best since her Australian Open triumph going without a title, and with injury problems as well. Maybe this unexpected jolt will wake her up for good.