Osaka had to deal with a butterfly landing on her nose
Friday but was otherwise little bothered as she breezed into the last 16 of the
Australian Open and a showdown with last year’s runner-up Garbine Muguruza.
The champion in Melbourne two years ago, gently carried the
insect intruder to safety at the side of the court before closing out an easy
6-3, 6-2 victory over Tunisian 27th seed Ons Jabeur in 1hr 18min.
Japan’s Osaka, who has dropped just 13 games in her opening
three matches, is great friends with “free spirit” Jabeur and said playing
against her on John Cain Arena was “really fun”.
But she wasn’t happy with how she performed.
“I felt like I wasn’t playing that well, like my unforced
error rate was probably really high today,” she said. “But I’m really happy
with how I fought.”
Osaka will face an entirely different style of play when she
meets two-time Grand Slam winner Muguruza for a place in the quarter-finals.
“For me I feel like Ons is a very different player, but
that’s just judging from the matches I’ve watched of Muguruza,” she said.
“I think Ons is definitely more of a free spirit, and I
think for me Muguruza might be a bit more like my taste. Like she’s not as
unpredictable as Ons is.”
Osaka added that she was excited to finally play the Spanish
14th seed, having watched her win Grand Slam titles at Roland Garros in 2016
and Wimbledon a year later.
“I’ve practised with her once, but it was on grass, and I
was younger,” she said.
“But I just remember being really impressed by her, and for
me, I’ve watched her win Wimbledon and win the French Open when I was younger,
and I’ve always wanted to have the chance to play her. So for me, this is really
exciting.”
When they do play on Sunday, it will be in front of an empty
stadiums after it was announced Friday that Melbourne would go into five days’
lockdown from midnight to try and stamp out a fresh coronavirus cluster.
“I feel like while I’m here, I’m really embracing the
crowd,” said Osaka, but added that with no fans to spur her on she would
instead just “focus within myself”.
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