Naomi Osaka recorded her third consecutive win for the first time in over four months to reach the fourth round of the 2024 China Open.
The Japanese player has been showing her undisputed qualities during the 2024 season, but it never materialized in some signature run. Either she played a bad match that cost her the tournament, or she was very unlucky with a draw and got a very strong opponent.
Because of that, since coming back to the tennis courts this year, she won three matches in a row only once - at the 2024 Italian Open in Rome, where she reached the fourth round after beating Clara Burel, Marta Kostyuk, and Daria Kasatkina.
At the WTA 1000 tournament, she managed to pull off a similar run. After beating Lucia Bronzetti, the four-time major winner also outplayed Yulia Putintseva to reach the third round of the tournament.
For Osaka, the win over Putintseva was her eighth in a row at the China Open, as she last played at the tournament back in 2019. She walked away with the trophy, beating Jessica Pegula, Andrea Petkovic, Alison Riske, Bianca Andreescu, Caroline Wozniacki, and Ashleigh Barty to win the tournament.
She could add her ninth in a row against Katie Volynets in the third round, and she did. However, it wasn't so easy—not because of the match itself but because of the conditions in Beijing, which postponed it by one day.
The two were supposed to take to the court on Sunday, but it wasn't possible, and as the match wasn't scheduled to be played on a court with a roof, it had to be postponed by one day to Monday.
Not distracted by the rain delay, Osaka came out firing. She held in her first two service games and broke her opponent's serve to lead 3-0 in almost no time. She then held again to make it 4-1.
From there, the task was very simple for the Japanese player, and that was to hold her serve in order to win the match. Winning 80% of her points after her first serve and hitting four aces in that opening set, that wasn't a problem for her, as she easily won the first set 6-3.
In the second set, Osaka was even better. Throughout the whole match, she didn't face a single break point, while she produced six chances to break her opponent in four different games in the second set.
Ultimately, she used two of her chances, and that was more than enough. The 26-year-old for broke for a 2-1 lead, which she later made 4-1 with another break of serve, and had a match point on her opponent's serve to make it 6-1.
She couldn't break for the third time, but that wasn't a problem at all as she served out the match to 15, winning it 6-3, 6-2.
Thanks to the win, Osaka will now play against Coco Gauff in the fourth round of the 2024 China Open. Gauff outplayed Katie Boulter in her third-round match.