Naomi Osaka revealed she drew inspiration from Novak Djokovic’s strategic method, making changes to her return sport on the Qatar Open.
This shift in ways proved efficient, as she secured consecutive victories for the primary time in almost two years.
The 26-year-old Japanese participant had confronted challenges find her kind since returning to the circuit final month after a 15-month break, throughout which she grew to become a mom.
Her early exits in Brisbane, the Australian Open and Abu Dhabi had been adopted by a major turnaround in Doha.
However, after beating fifteenth seed Caroline Garcia, who defeated her at Melbourne Park, within the Doha first spherical, she confirmed glimpses of her greatest kind in a 6-3, 7-6(9) win over Petra Martic on Tuesday to succeed in the final 16.
“A technical tweak may have helped,” she mentioned. “I did change my return – I don’t want to say ‘style’ but I guess ‘form.’ I don’t know how to describe it. Like, before I was taking one step, one step, and then jumping in, but now I’m just jumping in with both feet, because apparently Djokovic does that, so why not copy the best returner in the world?”
Osaka, who final received two straight matches on the tour stage in 2022 on the Miami Open, mentioned {that a} dialog with coach Wim Fissette sparked the changes to her sport.
“It was frustrating knowing that my serve is one of the best serves, dare I say, in the world,” Osaka added. “But I just really wanted to work on the things I know should be a lot better and the return was one of them. We were talking about it a lot in the off-season and leaving Melbourne, definitely needed to improve it.”
Osaka takes on Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko afterward Wednesday.
Source: www.dailysabah.com