By Amy Tennery
NEW YORK, Sept 3 (Reuters) – Two-time champion Naomi Osaka overcame a flurry of mistakes to fight past Czech Katerina Siniakova 6-2 5-7 6-1, finding her mettle to reach the third round of the U.S. Open on Thursday.
The 13th seed has spent years taming her own tendency toward self-recrimination, and showed the best evidence of her new career outlook as she reclaimed her composure with a bathroom break before the third set at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“I think I was a little bit too hard on myself, so I took the bathroom break, tried to regroup and have no regrets,” said Osaka, who will next play Belgian Elise Mertens.
The winner in 2018 and 2020 was pristine through the first set, with just four unforced errors, as she broke her opponent to love in the fourth game. The Czech did herself no favours with three double faults in the eighth game before letting Osaka break again on set point with an unforced error.
It was a different story in the second set, where Osaka’s form dropped just as Siniakova hit her stride, and the Japanese 13th seed put up 20 unforced errors that gave the Czech too many chances.
After trading breaks twice in the second set, Osaka tapped her racket on the court in frustration after whacking a backhand into the net and handed Siniakova the break with another backhand error in the penultimate game.
Osaka went to the locker room before the third set, a decision that helped her move on.
“Obviously the match was really difficult. I think on my end it was more, like, mentally I wanted to play perfectly. Obviously that’s not going to happen every day,” said Osaka.
“In the third set, I just tried to do what I could do, and thankfully I was able to win.”
She emerged back on the court with new resolve, sprinting through the first three games and saving two break points in the fifth before closing it out with an unreturnable serve.
Osaka has provided some of Flushing Meadows’ most memorable moments – from her breakthrough 2018 win to her public advocacy for racial justice en route to the title in 2020 – and said she was able to pull from her “memory bank” of compelling wins to help her power through.
“When it gets to the third set, I try to think of all of the matches I was able to pull through,” said Osaka, who reached the semi-finals a year ago.
“I was trying to tell myself in the third set, like, keep going and keep trying to take the opportunities.”
(Reporting by Amy Tennery in New YorkEditing by Christian Radnedge)
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