“I was overthinking” – Defeated Osaka working on being nicer to herself

Six months ago, Naomi Osaka reminded the press room at the Australian Open, she was pregnant. She has returned to the biggest stage of all after giving birth to daughter Shai – and despite a straight-sets defeat to Caroline Garcia, she has some positives to take away from it all.

“I thought it was a really good match,” she told reporters. “For me, I felt like I did the best that I could possibly do. It was just really nice to be on Rod Laver again, hear the audience, how much they interacted with the match. That was fun.”

Reflecting on the specific challenges of playing a former world No 4, she said: “Of course the returns were really important, but I think I could have done a little bit more – this is my opinion – from, like, baseline shots. I felt like I was constantly on my back foot and really hesitant. I think it might be because I haven’t played matches in a while. I was a little bit overthinking in my head where to go.

“Yeah, of course, I think that’s something that will come in time. But right now it kind of sucks a little.”

Osaka: I always expect myself to stand a chance

Of Osaka’s three matches back on tour thus far, she has lost to two very strong servers in Garcia and Karolina Pliskova, who beat her in Brisbane – but she did not go into either match expecting to lose.

“Of course I have to tell myself, Hey, like six months ago you were pregnant, stuff like that. Of course, like, there’s a voice in my head that is, Who are you to think you can come back and immediately start winning matches?

“I don’t know. I kind of always expect myself to stand a chance anyways. So I guess just being nicer to myself is like a key thing that I learned in my time away.

“But it is really tough to I guess play a good server and not make too many returns.”

And she had a little joke about why she was so disappointed to make an early exit.

“I’m a little sad ’cause this outfit’s really cool and you won’t see it again!” she laughed. “That’s why I had to wear it in here.”

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