July 27, (THEWILL) – The bid of Japanese tennis player Naomi Osaka for a triumphant return to active tennis with an Olympic medal ended tearfully after her stunning 6-1 6-4 straight sets loss to Czech player Marketa Vondrousova at the third round of the tennis event at the Summer Games in Tokyo.
Osaka was widely considered favourite to clinch her first Olympic gold in style in front of her own people at the Olympics hosted in her home country and especially after world number one, Ashleigh Barty, had been knocked out of contention in the first round.
Besides being the highest seed left in the tournament, Osaka had taken time off the game to refocus on herself after the furore over her Press boycotts of the French Open and all the fallout from that affair. She was coming back to tennis fresh with an eye on the prize, an Olympic gold medal.
She demonstrated that objective with her single-minded performance in the matches of the first two rounds she played in Tokyo. Yet, the swagger that brought her victories against Chinese Zheng Saisai and Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland was absent against the Czech.
The 23-year-old was sloppy in the opening games while the clinical Vondrousova secured a double break early on and continued to give Osaka plenty to worry about with backhand returns that the Japanese had to answer to and dropshots that were beautiful to watch. In just 13 minutes of the first set Osaka was 4-0 down.
The evidence of how bad she was playing showed in the statistics as the world number two finished the match with 32 unforced errors. In the first set, with Vondrousova on the verge of the triple break with two break points, Osaka rallied to hold serve and get on the board for the first time in the match for 4-1.
But, the Czech simply blew the top seed away by taking the next two games with the help of two perfectly executed dropshots to win 6-1 in just 25 minutes. It left Osaka facing the very real prospect of an early exit from her home showpiece.
Osaka managed to arrest the slide in the second set. Her all-round play improved and she produced a better defensive game helping her break Vondrousova’s serve for the first time in the contest.
She then hit her first ace in the next game as her improvements continued.
However, the Czech did not let up. Vondrousova extended pressure on Osaka’s service game, especially every second serve the Japanese attempted as she seemed well capable of reading how Osaka was going to go.
As Osaka’s sloppiness returned, Vondrousova was there to punish her. The world number 42 levelled the set by breaking Osaka’s serve in the fourth game. Vondrousova slipped to a back-to-back double fault, but recovered with two more masterly disguised dropshots to take a 4-3 lead.
It was an uphill task for Osaka, who was left staring in disbelief at some of the shots the Czech pulled out of her bag. Two more match points were all Vondrousova needed on Osaka’s service game to take the win.
Although Osaka mounted a spirited defense of the match points, Vondrousova had done enough take the set and win the match to knock the home girl out of the Games.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
