Naomi Osaka has been playing a lot of tennis lately, and former ATP player Andy Roddick praised her in the most recent episode of his 'Served with Roddick' podcast.
The Japanese player has four Grand Slam trophies to her name, which is amazing, but it's even more amazing when looking at the rest of her career. She has only seven trophies overall, and four of those were majors.
That's remarkable, but there is a reason for that, and the reason can be noticed when looking at the number of matches she played in her career. The former world no. 1 played only 439 matches so far in her career, which, at age 26 and considering how strong of a player she is, is not a lot.
She hasn't played too many events in her career, which is why she hasn't won too much, either. She mostly played the majors and WTA 1000 tournaments because her scheduling has always been focused on the biggest events.
That's not the case this year, as she's playing the most tennis she's ever played, and it's by design. Her coach told her that she needed to play a lot of tennis because the more she played, the quicker she'd get to where she was, which is her goal.
"Listen, she's coming back. My favorite thing is that she's scheduling aggressively. She played last week, she played this week. She's never done that in her entire career or even when she was peak Osaka. And I think we're starting to see those moments of that high level from Naomi. Obviously, the errors are coming a little bit more often than they did when she was in her prime."
Osaka has really looked great on the tennis court at times, but obviously, she's not at her peak yet. Her tennis is coming back slowly, so there's no doubt that as she builds the confidence, the four-time major winner may become real threat, especially after how she was able to trouble Iga Swiatek at the 2024 Roland Garros.
"Also, I think she's making this progress on surfaces that she doesn't really like, that aren't natural to her. On the clay, we saw her giving Swiatek hell in the French Open. (She was) the only one who was on the same stratosphere as her (Swiatek) for two hours of that tournament. And then I like what she's doing on the grass."
0 Comments