Osaka underlines importance of having a plan against Hsieh

Naomi Osaka is through to the Australian Open semifinals after a strong victory over Su-Wei Hsieh 6-3 6-3 and after the match, she talked about the importance of having a plan.

Playing against a tricky opponent is never pleasant and Osaka knew that coming into the match against Hsieh whom she defeated 4 times before but with a lot of struggles. After the victory she spoke about having a plan going into it:

"Today it was really important to have a plan, just because she's an opponent that I'm not really sure what's going to happen. So just having something to structure myself and not get carried away with what she's going to do was definitely really important."

Hsieh a player is known to give many players issues due to her unconventional style of play. Osaka admitted as much by saying she never knew what she was going to do:

"I feel like every time I play her, it's really challenging because I never know exactly what she's going to do with the ball. I think today I just really focused on my game plan. I think it was kind of very clear what I thought I had to do."

For a place in the finals, she will face Serena Williams who defeated Halep several hours after her press conference. Naturally, she was asked about who she would like to play and Osaka wasn't thrilled with playing either. She first touched upon playing Halep:

"Halep, I don't really like playing her. She's someone that's really tough, someone that gets the ball back every time. For me, it's definitely a mental and physical battle."

Then she commented on Serena:

"Of course, the same goes for Serena. She's Serena, someone that I feel really intimidated when I see her on the other side of the court. But, yeah, I feel like them playing their match tonight is going to be really fun."