Naomi Osaka is fighting for the post of the world no.1 and also for winning the Western & Southern Open title. Among the last 16, she outplayed Hsieh 7-6 (3), 5-7, 6-2
Osaka lost the second set in the match, but in the third she showed a 100% game again and won the match scoring 15 aces.
After the match, Osaka said she knew the match with Hsieh would be long and difficult.
“I thought I did pretty well,”
Osaka said for wtatennis.com. “I feel like I knew going into the match that she was going to play really well. Like, we have such long matches every time we play, so I wasn't expecting anything different this time around."
The world number one admitted that there was a moment in the match when she felt a bit irritated.
“For me, there was a moment in the third set where I just started laughing because I felt myself getting a bit irritated,” she admitted.
“But then I was thinking to myself, I think I'm getting irritated because it's so hard. This match is so hard."
Even though the players played the first 2 sets for almost 2 hours, Osaka knew she still had to fight in the match. The Japanese does not fight only for the title at the Western & Southern Open, but also for maintaining the No. 1 position in the WTA ranking. And she continued about her struggle:
“And I'm, like, But this is funny to me, because I love playing hard matches. So how can I be getting irritated if it's what I want?"
“It's one of those things where you think, like, this is the moment where you test yourself. This is a moment that you think is, like, the moments that you live for. Yeah, that's what I was thinking about.”
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