Should Osaka defeat Anisimova, she will become the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after becoming a mother since Victoria Azarenka made the 2020 US Open showpiece, which Osaka won.<\/p>\n
And if the four-time major winner goes all the way in New York, she will be the first player since Kim Clijsters (in 2009, 2010 and 2011) to have won a Slam after giving birth.<\/p>\n
Having struggled to put a dent in Muchova’s serve earlier in the first set, Osaka pounced decisively at 5-4 – going 0-40 up and closing out the opener at the second time of asking.<\/p>\n
Muchova, who began grimacing because of an issue with her left leg in the sixth game, called for the trainer and received medical attention off court.<\/p>\n
She returned with heavy strapping on her thigh, but it didn’t seem to hinder her tennis as she opened the second set with an early break.<\/p>\n
Osaka struck back immediately, however, and there was little to separate the pair until a frustrated Osaka conceded serve at 4-4 with a series of unforced errors.<\/p>\n
But, as Muchova stepped up to serve and force a deciding set, Osaka regained her composure and bounced back aggressively, breaking to love to level the set.<\/p>\n
She took control in the tie-break, opening up a 4-1 lead which proved enough for her to wrap up the victory with a beaming smile.<\/p>\n
“It was an incredibly difficult match,” Osaka added in her on-court interview. “She’s one of the best players in the world – every time I play her it’s so difficult.<\/p>\n
She joked: “Last year she beat me here when I had one of my best outfits, so I was really upset.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should Osaka defeat Anisimova, she will become the first player to reach a Grand Slam final after becoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-118481","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}