{"id":745296,"date":"2026-07-05T21:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/745296\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T21:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T21:54:12","slug":"naomi-osaka-sends-aryna-sabalenka-out-of-wimbledon-with-stunning-serve-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/745296\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka sends Aryna Sabalenka out of Wimbledon with stunning serve performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London \u2014 Naomi Osaka<\/a>\u2019s transformation into a titan of grass-court tennis took its biggest leap forward Sunday, as she knocked Aryna Sabalenka out of Wimbledon in straight sets.<\/p>\n

Osaka was nearly untouchable on a warm, still evening in London, unlike anything she could have imagined for herself before this year. For a fourth consecutive match, Osaka crushed her serve and groundstrokes, pushing the world No. 1 onto her heels and leaving her swatting desperately for balls that cruised and skidded past her.<\/p>\n

With a 6-2, 7-6(2) victory, Osaka had her biggest win since she returned to the tour after pregnancy in 2024, and perhaps even since her last Grand Slam title win, all the way back in February of 2021. This win also means Osaka makes the quarterfinals of Wimbledon for the first time.<\/p>\n

For Sabalenka, it was another difficult result, in an early summer that has had far more of them than she might have anticipated after her mostly scintillating first three months of the season. Sabalenka made the final of the Australian Open and then completed a rare Sunshine Double with wins at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells and then the Miami Open.<\/p>\n

Why do players wear white at Wimbledon?<\/p>\n

Ava Wallace and Madison Eades<\/p>\n

But as the season moved to the organic surfaces of clay and grass, where it\u2019s harder for her to find the stability she craves, her results grew rocky. That included a quarterfinal meltdown at the French Open, where she served for the match against Russia\u2019s Diana Shnaider before spiraling out of form, losing the final 10 games.<\/p>\n

Sunday evening, though, was more about Osaka\u2019s fire and savvy than Sabalenka\u2019s instability. It\u2019s not clear that even an elite version of Sabalenka, who had won their three previous meetings this season, could have gotten the better of Osaka in this match.<\/p>\n

That would have been hard for most people to fathom a week ago. They are both 28. Sabalenka is a three-time Wimbledon semifinalist. Osaka had never played a fourth-round match at the All England Club before. For years, the grass was a puzzle she felt like she couldn\u2019t solve \u2014 and didn\u2019t really seem to want to try.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, she overpowered maybe the most overpowering player in the world, with a stunning display of the kind of controlled aggressiveness that has long thrived on Centre Court. It was just that Osaka had never thrived there. The win was her first there in six previous appearances at Wimbledon, which used to make some sense but now makes none at all, especially with Osaka cranking her old-style booming serve that gave Sabalenka few openings.<\/p>\n

Osaka\u2019s serve numbers were borderline absurd. In the second set, she landed 70 percent of her first serves and won 22 of 23 of those points. For the match she won 33 of 38 points on her first serve, 87 percent. Nearly half of her first serves didn\u2019t come back. She weaponized her second serve, too, winning 61 percent of those points.<\/p>\n

Despite that clarity, the way Osaka has talked about the past week suggests she\u2019s not exactly sure why it\u2019s all come together, though she has some ideas.<\/p>\n

She seems to understand how to play with the surface, instead of against it. She has also unlocked the movement that any player needs to thrive on the surface. She felt like the player she was before her hiatus to give birth to her daughter, Shai, at last year\u2019s D.C. Open in late summer, she said.<\/p>\n

The process took close to two years. On a surface where movement is paramount, that has proven priceless, and it certainly did Sunday evening against Sabalenka.<\/p>\n

There was Osaka, stutter-stepping across the grass and lacing forehands and backhands across the court. Over and over, her knees came within inches of the grass as she bent low for shots that skidded by her in the past, or forced her to swing up and set up her opponents for easy putaways.<\/p>\n

After Osaka blitzed Sabalenka in the first set, Sabalenka steadied but spent much of the second set fighting out of trouble. Osaka mostly cruised through her service games, riding that first big shot to serenity, while Sabalenka did all she could to hang in and force a tiebreak. She had won 21 in a row at majors. Surely that would provide some sanctuary.<\/p>\n

\"Aryna<\/p>\n

\n World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka was largely powerless against Naomi Osaka on Centre Court. (Cameron Spencer \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Instead, Osaka\u2019s serve remained immaculate. She started with one that Sabalenka barely got her strings on. Then she blasted an ace that set the tone for what was about to unfold.<\/p>\n

Quiet most of the match, Osaka let out a huge, fist-pumping \u201ccome on!\u201d as she stretched her lead to 5-1 off another big serve. As they changed sides, the mission was nearly complete. After Sabalenka delayed a result that had begun to appear as inevitable as the sun\u2019s descent over Centre Court, Osaka jumped on a return to take control of the point.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka stretched once more, but there was nothing doing. The ball was in the net, and Osaka was away.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka took a ball out of dress and smacked it into the roof in anger<\/p>\n

\u201cI f\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 it up this year. Next year I\u2019ll try to do better,\u201d Sabalenka said in her news conference. She hadn\u2019t lost in straight sets at a Grand Slam since 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t really thinking about my record at all. I was just trying to focus point by point,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cWhat could I do if the person is acing and hitting the lines, just going for her shots without any fear? I was the one who was just trying to find my rhythm.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo extremes. I was really battling myself. She was just going for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, London \u2014 Naomi Osaka\u2019s transformation into a titan of grass-court tennis took its biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":745297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":["post-745296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745296","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=745296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/745297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=745296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=745296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=745296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}