Naomi Osaka has dropped the biggest hint yet that she has no plans of withdrawing from Wimbledon despite an injury scare on the eve of the tournament. Osaka retired during the second set of the Bad Homburg Open final against Karolina Muchova, with her Czech opponent leading 6-1, 1-0 after 46 minutes on court. The former US Open and Australian Open champion is seeded 14th at Wimbledon and due to play Elsa Jacquemot in the opening round on Monday. She has already practised once since arriving in London and the signs are positive.
“I could be feeling better, but I could also be feeling worse,” Osaka said. “I thought [I had] a good practice. It was kind of windy here compared to Germany and the court is a little different but I think overall it was a good first practice and I’ll just see what happens tomorrow with my warm up and then the actual match.” The 28-year-old had claimed four straight-sets victories en route to her final against Muchova and, even though things didn’t go to plan on Saturday, she was taking positives from the situation.
“I would say I was most pleased with my mentality,” Osaka added. “Obviously I was able to play all those matches in straights, which is something a little unusual for me because sometimes I get distracted.
“But if they broke me, I was able to focus right away and try to break them back. So I think that’s something that I’m happy about because I worked pretty hard on it and I hope that it’ll work here and then obviously transferring back onto hard court.”
She said she has begun to take a more carefree approach to her tennis rather than getting ahead of herself and the run in Germany might be seen as proof that it’s working. However, she admitted to some frustrations about injury setbacks occurring so close to big tournaments.
“It doesn’t make me nervous, it just makes me sad,” she said. “Obviously, I was able to get to a final last year. It didn’t work out too well.
“I really wanted to get to another one and this was the one that I’ve gotten to, but I couldn’t play. It just sucked but I have another opportunity to do well here if I try to be as healthy as I can be, so that’s kind of my focus now.”