“I haven’t got injured this entire time”: Naomi Osaka using ballet with aim to evoke Clijsters and Serena Williams
ATP
Naomi Osaka found her way past Ons Jabeur in a superb display at the 2024 Canadian Open with her movement duly noted as being a heavily improved string to her bow.
Osaka has been doing ballet in a way to make herself better with both mental facets and also wanting to complete a split forehand.
She wants to evoke Serena Williams and Kim Clijsters in utilising such a fear but like alluded to also wants to just improve her overall movement and giving her crushing win over Jabeur is having its desired effects already.
"I think that Simone's [Elliott] helped my movement a lot. She's also kind of my mental coach . I said kind of, but she actually is my mental coach. Yeah, honestly, I haven't gotten injured this entire time, and I want to, like, you know, thank her for that, her and Flo [Florian Zitzelsberger]," Osaka said.
"I've been doing ballet lessons with her, so I told her one of my goals is to do the really famous, like [Kim] Clijsters and Serena [Williams], like, split forehand, so hopefully maybe in the next couple of months, if you see it on court, just know we've been working very hard on it," she added.
It is a move that she has previously mooted speaking about the work she was doing earlier in the season. "I can't really say what kind of exercises she uses because she never really names them; we just do them. Sometimes, well, like three times, we did a ballet class. It's so hard . I respect ballet and ballerinas so much . But it's very interesting . It feels like a portal into a new world," Osaka said.
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