Osaka not only matched Sabalenka for pace but played with more control. While Sabalenka’s frustrations after a missed shot were met with a yell or a glare at her box, Osaka would turn her back on a fluffed shot, heels kicking up as she jogged back to the baseline.<\/p>\n
She played with freedom, hitting 21 winners and winning 87% of points behind her first serve.<\/p>\n
She credited coach Tomasz Wiktorowski, who she joined up with in mid-2025, with her change in grass-court game.<\/p>\n
“When I was younger, I used to be extremely low, to the point where I’d bang my knees on the ground and think maybe I need knee guards while I’m playing,” Osaka said.<\/p>\n
“We all understood that I have potential to play really good on grass. I just need to figure out the movement part.<\/p>\n
“I’ve done a lot of drills with Tomasz. Most of them weren’t necessarily even on the grass court. It was more like pattern recognition and getting me comfortable with my own game.<\/p>\n
“Throughout the entire year, he’s been getting me more comfortable with my movement.”<\/p>\n
Osaka also credits her calmness with having her family around her in London.<\/p>\n
The family stay in a house together and celebrated Shai’s third birthday on Thursday – although Osaka did tell Friday’s Court One crowd that she’d had put her daughter in time-out because “she was kind of bad”.<\/p>\n
Quarter-final opponent Karolina Muchova – a crafty player who will counter Osaka’s pace with spin and guile – will be a tough test, but she will come up against a “looser, calmer, and more ready” Osaka.<\/p>\n
“Osaka probably thought it [her return] was taking way too long – this time last year she wasn’t even ranked in the top 50,” Austin said on BBC TV.<\/p>\n
“She has done a great job of getting more consistent, she is fitter than I’ve ever seen her and she is so committed to being controlled out there.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Osaka not only matched Sabalenka for pace but played with more control. While Sabalenka’s frustrations after a missed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-534856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}