MELBOURNE, Australia – So good lately, Naomi Osaka has been just one point away from the end of her month, one point away from leaving the Australian Open with a loss to Garbine Muguruza.
Gloomy as things looked for her late in a strong match of Grand Slam champions and former women ranked 1st, Osaka never wavered, clearing two match points and grabbing the last four games to reach Muguruza 4-6 , 6-4, 7-5 at Rod Laver Arena in the fourth round on Sunday.
The third series in Osaka returns in the quarterfinals of a tournament he won in 2019 for one of the three major trophies. Osaka won the series of victories in 18 matches – a race that included a US Open title in September – and stopped Muguruza’s own fine form.
Leaving for Sunday – the second day of the tournament without spectators, due to a local blockade COVID-19 – two-time major champion Muguruza was broken only once in this Australian Open. She dropped a total of 10 games in three games.
But Osaka broke it five times and won a total of 17 games in a basic back-and-forth game contest and an extraordinary serving of both on a cloudy day with the temperature in the mid-60s.
“I was a little intimidated, because I knew he was playing very well coming into this match,” Osaka said. “In stressful times, I feel like I have to get into it. And I know that today I probably hit a lot of unforced errors, but I feel like I should have done it, because I couldn’t give him any short ball because he would have finished it. “
Osaka ended with several unforced errors, 36-28, but also several winners, 40-24.
The key moment came when Osaka served at 15-40 while watching 5-3 in the final set. Muguruza could not convert any of these match points: Osaka delivered one of his 11 aces at 118 mph on the first; Muguruza missed a ground shot in the second.
Fifteen minutes later, the match was over.
Muguruza served for victory in the next game and broke when Osaka hit a winner on the field to end a 14-time exchange. After wanting to go up 6-5, Osaka broke Muguruza again to win their first head-to-head meeting.
Osaka, a 23-year-old woman who was born in Japan and moved to the United States with her family when she was 3, is now facing Taiwan’s 35-year-old Su-Wei Hsieh with a berth in the semifinals.
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Osaka said. “It will be very hard.”
The other matches in the fourth round on this side of the women’s draws were later on Sunday: Serena Williams vs. Aryna Sabalenka, and Simona Halep vs. Iga Swiatek.
Marketa Vondrousova, finalist of the Vondrousova March, won 6-4 and 6-2 over Hsieh, ranked 71st, making her the oldest woman to make her debut in her major quarters in the professional era.
This is Hsieh’s 38th major appearance on a Grand Slam tournament.
Hsieh plays with an unusual style that includes two-handed shots from both sides that could have upset Vondrousova in the 19th standings, who made 31 unforced errors, 13 more than the winner.
Hsieh defeated the 2019 US Open champion, Bianca Andreescu, in the second round.