Naomi Osaka started her 2024 China Open campaign with a commanding win, with her new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, watching from her box.
The Japanese player has good memories of the tournament in Beijing. Every time she played in the Chinese capital, she improved her results. She started in 2016 with a loss in the first round of the qualifying to Tatjana Maria, 2-6, 1-6.
The following year, she qualified for the main draw directly but lost in her first match once again, as Angelique Kerber stopped her, beating her 6-2, 7-5. However, already in 2018, Osaka came out firing.
She steamrolled past all of her opponents to reach the semi-finals, recording wins such as a 6-1, 6-0 thrashing of Danielle Collins. Although Anastasija Sevastova stopped her in the semi-final that year, Osaka left Beijing with the trophy the following year.
She won the 2019 China Open, beating the current World No. 3, Jessica Pegula, former US Open winner Bianca Andreescu, and two former World No. 1 players, Caroline Wozniacki and Ashleigh Barty, along the way.
This year, the 26-year-old started the WTA 1000 tournament after some coaching changes in her team. Osaka split from coach Wim Fissette after they started working together during her comeback this year.
She immediately hired a new coach, Patrick Mouratoglou. The experienced Frenchman appeared in Beijing with the four-time major winner. The two arrived in China’s capital together, and Mouratoglou, obviously, also watched Osaka’s match from her box.
Her first-round opponent at the tournament was Lucia Bronzetti from Italy, who doesn’t necessarily possess the qualities to beat Osaka. That showed at this year’s French Open, a Grand Slam tournament played on clay, Osaka’s worst surface, where the Japanese player was able to beat Bronzetti in three sets.
In this match, the Italian player had a better start. She had a break point already in the first game of the match, and even though she couldn’t use that chance, she worked her way to two more break points in the fifth game, and this time, converted.
Bronzetti led 3-2, but little did she know that the success would be very short-lived. She lost four games in a row as Osaka increased intensity, winning the first set of the match 6-3.
It’s clear that she likes the conditions in Beijing, as proven by her title from 2019, and she also continued her dominant charge in the second set of the match. After the Italian player held her serve in the opening game of the set, Osaka once again went on an impressive streak of games won.
She won five games in a row to make it 5-1. Her opponent was then able to add one more game on the scoreboard for herself, but that didn’t change the outcome of the match.
Osaka won 6-3, 6-2, producing a very confident performance to reach the second round of the 2024 China Open, in which she will take on the 21st-seeded Yulia Putintseva from Kazakhstan.
