Naomi Osaka will now compete in all the Grand Slams, per her coach, Wim Fisette, in a new approach because she didn’t do it in the past.
The Japanese player has four major triumphs, all of which came on hard courts. It’s her best surface, but not by a small margin, and it’s largely because she avoided playing on those other surfaces.
For example, this year’s Wimbledon will be her first in five years, which shows just how much she truly avoided playing at SW19. According to her coach Fissette, who spoke with the WTA, her new approach is to attend all the Grand Slams, something she didn’t do in the past.
She’s doing a lot of new things she didn’t use to do before during this comeback, and that’s why her coach also feels like she could now challenge for more trophies, instead of limiting herself to hard courts.
“The goals when she came back [from maternity leave] were to do much better on the clay and on the grass. After Paris she felt like, ‘Hey, I can really mean something in the future on the clay,’ and she definitely took that confidence to the grass.”
The new approach shows how motivated and ready Osaka really is for the grind of learning how to play on these other surfaces. Her skills are certainly good enough to be competitive on those other surfaces, so why not play on them more often?
“For me it’s like Naomi was competing to win one of the two hard-court Slams in her first career. I believe in the future, in the next five years, she will compete to win one of the four Grand Slams. We will go to all the Slams now where we believe we have a chance.”
“And although we know that probably grass is going to be more difficult than hard court, we believe, and she believes more and more, she can be an all-round player.”
