"I haven't touched clay in 2 years," says Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka enters the 2021 Madrid Open draw as the second-seeded and she doesn't have a lot of expectations ahead of the tournament.

It's been almost 2 years since Naomi Osaka player her last clay-court match at the 2019 Roland Garros against Katerina Siniakova. Now, she entered the 2021 Madrid Open draw as second seeded and she will meet one of the qualifiers in the first round.

“I do better when I don’t stress myself out and tell myself that I have to win a tournament”, admitted Osaka. “But it’s really hard to fight that feeling when you really want something”.

“At the end of the day, I haven’t played a clay tournament in two years. I haven’t touched clay in two years either, so… I’m just going in here just trying to have fun”, she said honestly. I do know that I think I’m hitting the ball pretty well. I can only hope that for now that’s good enough”.