Last year’s win over Petra Kvitova put Osaka on top of the tennis world, but she struggled through a ‘U-shaped’ season
It is difficult to think of many more impressive sequences in recent tennis history than the madness that unfurled in last year’s women’s
Australian Open final. Following all the suffocating drama surrounding her 2018
US Open victory over
Serena Williams, Naomi Osaka had arrived in Australia with a profile that perhaps no other new player, male or female, had managed to attain in the entire decade.
Most players would have struggled in the aftermath of the US Open match, but Osaka was still unsatisfied. She entered Melbourne to win and she ground her way into the final where she outplayed Petra Kvitova for two sets, eventually building a 7-6, 5-3 with triple championship point.