Osaka after win in hometown: "I always feel better here"

Osaka did not open the match ideally, when she lost two of her serves and was losing already 0-3. After that she managed to turn the first set and won it 7-5. She commented on her first set after the match.

"I was very nervous playing this match, because I felt like I really wanted to win," Osaka told the press, after the match. "After I won, I felt relieved, and also, I guess, happy with certain parts of how I was playing."

"I know in the first set, I just started slow, and then in the second set, I just made a lot of really bad decisions in the first game," Osaka stated. "Other than that, I knew that I was the power player, and that I was the one that was kind of dictating how the match would go. It gave me a little bit of comfort knowing that if I just dialed down my unforced errors, I was going to win."

Osaka also spoke about how does it feel to play in her home town. And her next match, where she will Putintseva from Kazakhstan.

"I always feel better here," Osaka added. "Of course, there’s always going to be a feeling of pressure, but for me, I don’t feel pressure from the city that I’m in, I feel pressure from the position -- from me, not the location. So that’s never really a factor for me."

"Looking into the next matches, in general, I just 100 percent need to improve my first-serve percentage," said Osaka. "It wasn’t great today; honestly, it hasn’t been great since Cincinnati. I feel like I definitely need to improve that."

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