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<\/p>\nNaomi Osaka came through a scare against world number 65 Antonia Ruzic to avoid an early exit.<\/p>\n
The two-time Australian Open champion took the opening set 6-3 and looked in control, but Ruzic hit back, winning the second set by the same scoreline.<\/p>\n
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Osaka, who many expect to climb back into the WTA top 10 this year, found herself in trouble after being broken midway through the final set. That gave Ruzic a 4-3 lead and put her on the brink of an upset.<\/p>\n
But Osaka responded well, reeling off three straight games to seal her place in the next round.<\/p>\n
Speaking after the match, Osaka explained that she made a tactical adjustment during the third set\u2014a change she felt should have come sooner.<\/p>\n
Naomi Osaka shifted her play towards Antonia Ruzic\u2019s forehand late in their Australian Open match<\/p>\n
Photo by Robert Prange\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Speaking after her win, Osaka credited Ruzic for the challenge, and explained what led to her tactical change late in the deciding set.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI mean, honestly what was going in my head was that I thought my level was pretty good,\u201d Osaka told reporters in Melbourne.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf she\u2019s playing at a level that\u2019s higher than mine the entire time, then she deserves to win. Obviously I don\u2019t want that to happen. But if it does, then it\u2019s out of my hands because I\u2019m literally doing the best that I can.<\/p>\n
\u201cI tried to change it up a little. I know she had, like, a really good backhand. I tried to hit more to her forehand. I tried to be a little bit more solid, then kind of accelerate when I could.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen obviously my serve came in really clutch at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Reflecting further on the match during her post-match press conference, Osaka admitted she wasn\u2019t surprised by how tough an opponent Ruzic turned out to be.<\/p>\n
The four-time Grand Slam champion also conceded that some of her decisions may have made things harder than they needed to be on court.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cNo, I mean, I think for me today, I obviously didn\u2019t know much about her. Like, I\u2019ve never played her before. I watched videos, of course.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut going into matches like those, especially since she\u2019s young. Like for me there are so many points that ended up being really long rallies even though this court is supposed to be faster,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n
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What did Naomi Osaka say about facing Sorana Cirstea next?<\/p>\n
Cirstea is currently ranked 41st in the world and is now entering her 20th year on tour after making her debut way back in 2006. She announced at the end of last year that this season would be her last.<\/p>\n
The Romanian came from behind in round one against Eva Lys (3-6 6-4 6-3) and looking ahead to their meeting this week, Osaka said: \u201cCirstea? I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve played her before, but obviously I\u2019ve seen her around quite a few times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka came through a scare against world number 65 Antonia Ruzic to avoid an early exit. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[66317,12083,18323,99,428],"class_list":["post-419287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-antonia-ruzic","tag-australian-open","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}