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Peter BodoTennis
NEW YORK — Naomi Osaka is not an “adventurous” eater, and she’s a bit superstitious.
So she’s been eating the same breakfast here at the US Open every day – going with one of this city’s famous combinations.
“I have eaten 500 bagels with smoked salmon on it,” Osaka said after her most recent win, a 6-0, 6-0 drubbing (a “double bagel,” to keep with the theme) of Allaksandra Sasnovich. And at this point, she would get “nervous” if she went rogue with her breakfast order now.
She has emerged as a serious contender for this title, and is playing more persuasive tennis than almost anyone else. She’s lost just seven games thus far.
Osaka is a 5-foot-11 multicultural phenom. She identifies as Japanese (her mother’s side) and plays for that nation. Her father is Haitian-American. Osaka has lived in the U.S. since age 3, originally here on Long Island, but currently in Boca Raton. Fla. The New York crowd is sure to embrace her — once they learn who she is.
“I have sort of already accepted the fact that I probably play better during the big stages …. I have always wanted to play on Arthur Ashe and stuff, so when the chance comes, of course I’m going to play my best.”
Naomi Osaka
Osaka’s chances are enhanced by the decimation of the pecking order in the bottom quarter of the draw. That quadrant has already lost No. 2 seed Caroline Wozniacki and extremely dangerous No. 5 seed Petra Kvitova. On Monday, Osaka will play No. 26 seed Aryna Sabalenka in the fourth round.
Should Osaka survive her next match, Osaka would meet an unseeded player in the quarters, then face a semifinal against, potentially, the highest seed left in the quarter, 2017 finalist and No. 14 Madison Keys.
Osaka is staging on a runway to stardom and stage fright, even in the event she ends up playing to the Labor Day crowd in an Arthur Ashe night match is unlikely to be a problem. While still just 20 years old, Osaka flips the usual problem of rising players upside down. She seems to thrive on big stages, and becomes vulnerable doing the grunt work on outside courts.
“I have sort of already accepted the fact that I probably play better during the big stages,” she said the other day. “I think that’s just something that I grew up watching, like, people on the bigger stages. I have always wanted to play on Arthur Ashe and stuff, so when the chance comes, of course I’m going to play my best.”
Osaka demonstrated her verve here last year, when she upset No. 6 seed Angelique Kerber. But her career launching pad was a win at the Indian Wells Premier Mandatory WTA event in early March. Her booming forehand and scorching hot serve enabled her to rip through a series of accomplished veterans including three former or current No. 1 players: Maria Sharapova, Karolina Pliskova and No. 1 Simona Halep. Just days later, Osaka went on the dismiss Serena Williams in the first round of Miami.
Osaka had trouble keeping up that new pace, although opponents took notice. British newcomer, Katie Boulter, was beaten by Osaka in the second round at Wimbledon. Her takeaway: “It’s a very clear thing for me and my team to see someone like that, to play against someone of that caliber. She’s got a great game. She hits the ball really fast, takes time away from you.”
Struggling to string together wins, Osaka played fitfully until she crashed in late July and early August, taking first-round losses in the big events in Montreal and Cincinnati. Ordinarily a presence in social media, she went silent, but fired up her Twitter account in mid-August with this pre-US Open tweet: “So the last couple of weeks have been really rough for me. I had a lot of pressure entering the hardcourt swing because I felt a lot of expectation on me from Indian Wells and I didn’t feel like the underdog anymore.”
Osaka seems to have overcome those feelings of pressure, aided by her coach since the end of 2017, Sascha Bajin. The former long-time hitting partner of Serena Williams, Bajin has helped Osaka overcome her impulsive instincts and harness her power.
“I hit with Serena almost every day for eight years, and Naomi’s weapons are just as big,” Bajin recently told the New York Times. “She’s not afraid of center stage, either, and that’s why I believe she has greatness within her.”
Until recently, Osaka had a tendency to take her foot off the gas after building a solid lead. She would space out.
“If I would go up 3-0, then I would create this drama where I relax a lot, and then I let the person come back into the match,” she said. “So I think, for me, now that I’m able to beat people at easier scores.”
Osaka may grow tired of salmon before she’s done in Flushing Meadows, but it’s unlikely she’ll tire of feeding bagels to her opponents as she makes her play for the US Open title.