By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday January 6, 2020
Naomi Osaka had her hands full in her 2020 debut but the two-time major champion delivered a proper response to a stirring challenge from Maria Sakkari of Greece. Osaka rallied from a break down in the third to claim a 6-2 6-7(4) 6-3 victory at the Brisbane International to set up a second-round encounter with American Sofia Kenin.
Osaka cracked 16 aces and saved two of three break points in the encounter. The 22-year-old, who finished prematurely at last year's WTA Finals due to a shoulder injury, was pleased with her serving and felt that she handled the adversity of a tricky encounter well.
"I'm really with how I served," she said, according to WTATennis.com. "I had to retire from my last match because of my shoulder injury, so I wasn't really sure how I was going to serve today, but I was told I hit 16 aces, so that's pretty good for me.”
Osaka improves to 3-1 lifetime against Sakkari, and starts a new season with new coach Wim Fissette on the right foot.
Sakkari, who enters the season ranked 23 in the world, has nothing to hang her head about. She played a near perfect second set, dropping just nine points on serve and never facing a break point.
Osaka dialed up the pressure in the third set and won eight of 10 second serve return points and broke on both her opportunities.
Sixth-seeded Kiki Bertens and eighth-seeded Madison Keys also came through with wins on Tuesday at Brisbane.
American Sloane Stephens fell in three sets to Russia’s Liudmila Samsonova.
Anett Kontaveit and Yuilia Putintseva were also winners.