Naomi Osaka had a meteoric ascent in 12 months. Back in January 2018, she was ranked only 150 in the worlds and after just 1 year following her triumph at the Australian Open she became the world no.1.
The Japanese had to cope with all sorts of emotions such as beating her childhood hero Serena Williams in straight sets on 2 occasions (and one of those was the US Open final) or winning 2 slams back to back. That changed Naomi’s life completely that besides pocketing generous checks from the tournaments and the sponsors, she had also to maintain a proper tennis level to meet the expectations.
Naomi Osaka about being world no.1
After Naomi’s 1st match win at the Miami Open, during an interview, she conceded that it still feels strange being called world no.1 to comment
“I try not to think about it too much because it still sounds really odd when they announce it. So I just try to think about playing my matches.”
Then, Noami had one of her funny moments, and when she was asked about if she expected to become the world no.1, she answered “In a way yes [I was expecting to be the world no.1], but not really… I don’t know how to describe it.”
Naomi will face Su_Wei Hsieh in the 3rd round of this Miami Open after that she faced already the Taiwanese in a tense match at the Australian Open when she won in 3 set. That was the first match between them, and therefore their head to head record stays at 1-0 for Osaka.
