Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka got her injury return off to a solid start on Friday, punching her ticket to the third round at Indian Wells with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over qualifier Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva.<\/p>\n
The Japanese superstar said she didn’t know what to expect from her 97th-ranked opponent in their first meeting.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
But more importantly she wasn’t too sure what to expect from herself in her first match since she pulled out before her Australian Open third-round contest with an abdominal injury.<\/p>\n
“It wasn’t, like, too positive,” she said of her build up to Indian Wells.<\/p>\n
“I was really disappointed (at the Australian Open), because it’s something that I have done to myself before, and I feel like every year I go through that specific injury.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
“Every year I can kind of feel it starting to happen. I was just really disappointed in myself, and then ironically, we were training and I injured myself — I did another injury.<\/p>\n
“Hopefully, that’s enough injuries for the whole year,” Osaka said. “I’m just grateful to be out here and be playing.”<\/p>\n
Osaka got off to a strong start, winning the first four games on the way to a 5-1 lead. But Jimenez Kasintseva won the next three games, breaking Osaka twice to level the set before the 16th-ranked star regrouped.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Despite the hiccups, Osaka was pleased to have improved on a disappointing first-round loss to Camila Osorio in the California desert last year in a match she dejectedly called the “worst match I’ve ever played in my life”.<\/p>\n
“Last year I didn’t do too well here, so I think I already exceeded the previous year. So I just hope that I can keep going,” she said.<\/p>\n
To do so she’ll have to get past Colombia’s Osorio, who saved three match points in a 4-6, 7-6 (7\/4), 6-3 victory over American Iva Jovic.<\/p>\n
bb\/rcw<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka got her injury return off to a solid start on Friday, punching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[165948,30732,165949,6564,101,118,56,54,55,160653],"class_list":["post-462305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-abdominal-injury","tag-indian-wells","tag-jimenez-kasintseva","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-victoria-jimenez-kasintseva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}