Australian Open 2019: Osaka routs Svitolina to advance to Semifinal

Naomi Osaka was an unstoppable force at the Australian Open Wednesday afternoon. In her quest to continue tennis glory to her name, the 21-year-old secured a ticket to the semifinals defeating Elina Svitolina 6-4, 6-1 on Rod Laver Arena at Melbourne Park. The Japanese star scored eight aces and 31 winners with not a single double fault that denied the Ukrainian from going any further in the tournament.

The two met five times before with Svitolina able to handle the Japanese star. Since their last meetings at Dubai and Miami, Osaka went on a rush that soon made her U.S. Open champion. While it didn’t lead to much else, she clearly remained a threat to everyone standing in her way.

She went the distance for the second time in the tournament making it a very even position going into the quarterfinal with the Ukrainian. Her victory over Keys came at a point where a long fight turned the tables completely. With the hope of wanting that, she would have to dig in against Osaka and prevent her from gaining any sort of leverage to advance further than ever before at a major.

Osaka chose to serve first in the match and kept Svitolina back to secure the hold. The sixth seed followed suit making her opponent know what she was in for. They went through four games with a hold, all while Osaka began to up her attacks. She scored winners against Svitolina in the fifth to hold before taking over the set in the sixth. It was there that pressure went against the Ukrainian who faltered and couldn’t reach some shots that led to Osaka’s 4-2 lead.

Svitolina answered back gaining three break points, holding on to two of them to go for the tie on serve in the eighth. The forehand ruined her chance to level committing two errors from it that allowed Osaka comfort. She scored two winners that gave her two break points before putting Svitolina away by her own forehand error. A need of immediate improvement came to her game in the ninth taking the lead for breakpoint answering the fourth seed’s returns in the rally. A ball wide of the court allowed the Ukrainian to play on maintaining some hope of being the one ahead in the match.

On serve in the tenth, Svitolina was outdueled giving enough room for the Japanese star to dictate her end to the first two points. The 24-year-old went with a crosscourt strategy but fell behind giving Osaka three set points. The 21-year-old lost every one of them choosing to go with desperate attempts that came off sloppy from the racket. With deuce in play for Svitolina, she got caught looking at a backhanded crosscourt winner from Osaka. She would capture the set on her fourth attempt with Svitolina unable to get the ball back over during her return.

It was only the seventh from the Ukrainian while her opponent had 19 on the day through 37 minutes. Despite those problems, the fourth seed had 17 winners and four aces that were enough to stand ahead after one. Svitolina left the court to try and regroup but the second set was one that she couldn’t dig into.

Osaka picked up right where she left off staying ahead of the Ukrainian after each point to claim the service hold. Two double faults came from the sixth seed’s serve putting in trouble with Osaka following up the free points with a backhanded winner. She capped the break with a forehand winner that showed her in high gear while her opponent was very much vulnerable. It led to Osaka keeping control to consolidate it with a hold that her up 3-0. With a large gap in front of her, Svitolina called for the trainer who seemed to have problems with her shoulder/neck area that she suffered during her round of 16 match. It led to the medical timeout which in turn cooled the fourth seed unintentionally.

Despite the time between points, Osaka fought against Svitolina’s serve to force deuce and attained the AD point on the first break. It was 4-0 for the world number four who maintained her concentration to get out of a jam in the fifth and sit one game away from the semifinals. Just when it looked as if the embarrassing bagel would eliminate Svitolina, she avoided that from happening going 40-15 to cap the game. It was it all out her hands as Osaka served up the seventh with a well-defended stance to end the match in 1 hour 12 minutes.

The first Japanese woman to reach the #AusOpen final four since 1994 (Kimiko Date) 🇯🇵🌟 pic.twitter.com/CVhAh8oGgM

— #AusOpen (@AustralianOpen) January 23, 2019

The victory was a strategy that worked in every aspect of Osaka’s straight sets win. She won 64 percent from the first serve and won six of nine net points that contributed to her dominance. With the possibility still open on winning back to back grand slam titles, the Japanese phenom will await her match on Friday between Karolina Pliskova or her U.S. Open final opponent: Serena Williams.

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