Last season was a mixture of up and down for Naomi Osaka. The Japanese not only won titles but also encountered some injuries along the way. Last year she won the Australian, US, and China open titles. However, she was forced to withdraw from the WTA Finals in Shenzhen, citing a shoulder injury.
However, ahead of the new season, the Japanese is hopeful to come back stronger. Having taken advantage of the offseason, Naomi is confident she will have a great season. “I just feel like for me having positive energy and having a clean mental slate is really important, so that’s what I did this entire off-season. I mean, I trained, but I wasn’t super pressed on anything,” she said.
During the offseason, Osaka had a chance to meet with one of her favorite musicians, Beyoncé. After that encounter, the 22-year old feels ready for the Australian Open, a tournament she not only won last season but also, she feels prepared to defend it.
Osaka’s shoulder injury
A shoulder injury meant that Osaka had to call to an end her participation in the WTA Finals in Shenzhen. The current world number three had to be replaced by Kiki Bertens. Below is what she said after calling it a day her participation in the season-ending tournament in Shenzhen, “I’m disappointed to have to withdraw from the Finals. It has been a great event in Shenzhen, and it’s the biggest WTA event of the year. This is not how I wanted to end this tournament or my season.”
Regardless of the shoulder injury, the Japanese still remained hopeful of getting back stronger and healthy once the 2020 season got underway. Furthermore, Osaka believes that last season was a learning curve. As the season starts, she is pretty sure that she will still make mistakes, but eventually, hard lessons will be learned along the way.
“I feel like 2019 had something I had to learn throughout the entire year. I feel like 2019 had so many trials and errors, and all in all, it felt like a very long year, but now that I’m here, it feels very compact. It’s learning about myself more. This year there will probably be a lot of things I do wrong, but I just have to learn from it.”
Barty the favorite in Brisbane
Ashleigh Barty, the current world no 1, is deemed favorite to reap significant success in Brisbane this year. According to Bet365, the Australian has been giving an odd of 4.33 to win the upcoming tournament outrightly. Last year she performed pretty well, ending the season at the top of the WTA rankings.
Naomi Osaka’s ranking and performance in 2020
Ranked world no.3, Naomi played her last match on the 27th of October when she overcame Petra Kvitova 7-61 4-6 6-4 in the round robin in Shenzhen.
Ashleigh Barty’s ranking and performance in 2020
Currently ranked no.1, Barty played her last match on the 10th of November when she capitulated to Kristina Mladenovic 2-6 6-4 7-61 in the Rubber 3 in FRA 2.
Naomi Osaka and Ashleigh Barty played each other 4 times. The head to head is 2-2.
The last time that they fought against each other, Naomi Osaka won 3-6 6-3 6-2 in the final in Beijing (China Open) in October 2019.
Here the video highlights.
Naomi Osaka and Ashleigh Barty |
| Embed from Getty Images |
