Those improvements helped Osaka improve on her natural weapons, including the serve \u2013 which as she explained at Wimbledon, she developed almost by accident when she was practising with sister Mari at age 15. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember my knees always used to hurt because I kept growing,\u201d she said. \u201cThen one day I decided to hit my serve as hard as I could. It went in. It was an ace. I thought \u2018If I can just keep doing this, keep going for it, it would be a really solid addition to my game\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Osaka\u2019s power was never more evident than in her victory over Sabalenka at Wimbledon. Her 6-2 7-6(2) triumph came after three earlier losses to the world No.1 this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sabalenka\u2019s stark assessment that \u201cshe overpowered me\u201d underlined how superbly Osaka had harnessed that power, with a\u00a0clear tactical plan underpinning her statement win.\u00a0
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we\u2019re big ball strikers \u2026 it\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to start running around the court trying to draw an error from her,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cI can only focus on my strengths. I just tried to serve really well [and] to get the upper hand in the rallies first.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The other statement for Osaka at Wimbledon was of course the fashion kind. Following her dramatic entrances at the Australian Open and Roland Garros, Osaka\u2019s unique look honoured her Japanese heritage at Wimbledon. \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I really love fashion. That makes me excited to wake up and do the whole, like, walk-on or whatever. It just\u00a0creates a little bit more joy in that whole match preparation,\u201d she related of the signature looks that have become a talking point of\u00a0the tennis world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I grew up with the G.O.A.T.s of style, Serena [Williams], Venus [Williams], [Maria] Sharapova. People don\u2019t talk about her enough, but Bethanie Mattek-Sands, too. She made it work with what she had.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those improvements helped Osaka improve on her natural weapons, including the serve \u2013 which as she explained at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862185,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-862184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862184","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=862184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862184\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}