Naomi Osaka crashes out of Berlin first round after loss to Zheng Qinwen
BERLIN – Naomi Osaka would know by now, at this stage in her career, that she is not very good on grass or on clay and that she needs to improve when playing on those surfaces.
On June 18, the Japanese suffered a three-sets first-round loss to sixth seed Zheng Qinwen of China in the WTA 500 Berlin event, a grass-court build-up to Wimbledon in July.
Zheng, this season’s Australian Open runner-up, gave Osaka a 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 lesson to set up a round-of-16 meeting against Katerina Siniakova.
The duo had played each other only recently, with the Chinese winning in straight sets on the Italian Open clay in May.
“Naomi Osaka is always one of the greatest players, she has a strong serve, she hits hard. It’s never easy to play against her,” said Zheng, who fired a WTA season-high 23 aces.
“Honestly for me it doesn’t matter who I play. I’ve played her on all surfaces now. She’s a tough opponent for the first round. I’m happy I gave my best today.”
Zheng now leads their head-to-head 2-1, winning on grass and clay, but losing on the hard court at San Jose in 2022.
Osaka’s defeat comes after she was dumped out of the quarter-finals of the ‘s-Hertogenbosch grass tournament last week by Canadian Bianca Andreescu, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (7-3).
The former world No. 1, who put up a magnificent second-round fight with eventual French Open champion Iga Swiatek in May, has two Grand Slam wins each at the Australian and US Opens but none on the other two surfaces.
She has never made it past the third round at both Wimbledon and the French Open, and will need to magically find form ahead of the third Grand Slam of the year.
In men’s tennis, Australia’s Jordan Thompson caused an early upset at the Queen’s Club tournament in London with a first-round win over seventh-seed Holger Rune on June 17.
Thompson came from a set down to beat his Danish opponent – a semi-finalist last season – 4-6, 7-6 (7-4), 6-3.
Former Wimbledon runner-up Milos Raonic survived two match points in a marathon third-set tie-break before beating Britain’s Cameron Norrie 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 7-6 (11-9).
Injuries have seen the Canadian slip from No. 3 in the world rankings to 186.
But the 33-year-old retains one of the most powerful serves in the game, striking 47 aces in total which is a record for a best-of-three sets ATP match.
Several of his 225kmh thunderbolts proved too much for Norrie, and Raonic was quoted as saying by the ATP that he “needed every single one of those” aces.
“This small record, it’s something special, something meaningful,” he said. AFP, REUTERS