Naomi Osaka willing to adapt to conquer clay but won’t start ‘slicing and dicing’
Naomi Osaka has admitted that she needs to adapt her game to get better on clay but insists she won’t be compromising her base game trying to hit slices on every shot.
Osaka was delighted to see a plan come together as she downed lucky loser Greet Minnen 6-4, 6-1 in 1 hour and 19 minutes at the Madrid Open.
The four-time Grand Slam winner doesn’t believe she will ever be an ‘Iga Swiatek’ but says she is enjoying the challenge of getting better on clay.
“There’s definitely beauty to it, and I’m taking a lot of inspiration from people who do well on it,” she said after the match.
“I’m not expecting to be like Iga, but I just want to do the best with what I have.”
Osaka was thrilled to succesfully execute her sliding into shots and felt that she got her drop shots going too, however she still isn’t keen on hitting a slice, a staple of many clay mavens.
“Overall, just really happy,” Osaka said in a press conference at the Madrid Open.
“I had a game plan with Wim and I was able to execute it. I do have a tendency to get down on myself, especially when I feel I should’ve converted [break points] or done better, so I was definitely telling myself to keep my head up and hopefully I’d have more opportunities.
“I slid a couple of times to my forehand pretty well, so I was excited about that. And she was hitting really good drop shots, but I think I got to a couple quite well. Movement-wise I’m feeling a lot more comfortable.
“I want to adapt and I’m trying to adapt, but there are things that work for me and have gotten me to where I am, so I don’t want to start slicing and dicing. There’s a basis to my game and I want to stick to that, but also respect the court. It’s a work in progress for me, but I’m watching a lot more matches on clay, I’m trying to do my homework as best as I can.
“I would like to win a tournament on clay. It would be very ironic but also hilarious if my first tournament [win of the comeback] would be on clay.”
READ MORE: Naomi Osaka on clay – What to expect as her comeback continues
Osaka moves on to what might be a stiffer test of her credentials on the terre battue.
While she faces a seeded player in No 15 Liudmila Samsonova, Osaka holds a 1-0 head-to-head lead over the Russian, whom she beat at Indian Wells in similar circumstances.
Samsonova may be seeded but she has also lost her last three matches, two of those being WTA 1000 second round matches when she had been given a bye into the Round of 64.
