By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Friday April 1, 2022
The second meeting of Iga Swiatek and Naomi Osaka will be a lot different than the first.
Photo Source: TVA
For a tournament that commenced under the black cloud of Ash Barty’s retirement from tennis at age of 25, the Miami Open has delivered an extremely positive final that points to a bright future for the women’s game, and the renewal of a budding rivalry between Iga Swiatek and Naomi Osaka.
The pair of mega talents will meet for the trophy on Saturday, in a role reversal from their first meeting in 2019, when Osaka was No.2 in the world and Swiatek came in at 65. This week it is the Pole, now 20 years of age, who is ready to take the mantle as the WTA’s top player; Osaka, at 77 in the world and still finding her way back to form after a year of personal difficulties, cops underdog status as the lowest-ranked women’s singles finalist in Miami Open history.
In truth Swiatek and Osaka are a lot closer than their respective rankings indicate. No doubt Swiatek is a cut above the rest of the tour at the moment, having won 16 consecutive matches and claimed her last 18 sets in succession, but Osaka is a worthy adversary that is catching fire this spring.
The 24-year-old has cleared myriad hurdles to return to stunning form this week in Miami, and her semifinal win over Belinda Bencic is a clear indication that Osaka is inching closer to vintage form - see the 18 aces, and the Houdini act from 1-2 15-40 in the third set - this spring.
Osaka had lost all three of her previous matchups to Bencic, and dropped the first set on Thursday to the Swiss, but she doubled down her efforts to notch her first appearance in a final since she won her fourth major title at the 2021 Australian Open.
"I wanted to go into this tournament and test myself, and I feel like she was probably the best opponent in the world for that. I didn't have good memories playing against her," Osaka said on Thursday.
Odds Favor Swiatek
Osaka is the heavy underdog in this match according to oddsmakers (and most pundits and our poll on Twitter), despite her win over Swiatek in 2019, which came long before the Pole’s maiden Grand Slam title, while she was just 18.
Two and a half years later Swiatek is a vastly improved and far more lethal player. Though she has not won a major title since 2020, she has been the tour’s most consistent performer at big events for some time, and in 2022, since hiring Tomasz Wiktorowski as her coach and retooling her tactics, Swiatek has emerged as an absolute tour de force.
As Andy Roddick put it on Tennis Channel after a recent dominant performance from the 20-year-old: “It’s hard to win points from her right now.” Let alone games or sets...
Osaka has also been impressed with Swiatek’s run at Indian Wells and Miami.
“I remember playing Iga in Toronto when she was first coming up, and my immediate thought was, Wow, this girl is really athletic. She's sliding all around the place,” Osaka said. “I think it's really amazing to see how far she's come. She's just so motivated. I know when I won Indian Wells I was just like really dead, and then they made me play Serena in the first round. I was like, ‘Whoa, dude.’”
Serve it up, Naomi
If Osaka plans to win her share of points in Sunday's final she’ll have to continue serving lights out. Swiatek has broken serve in 58.5 percent of her return games at Miami, but she hasn’t faced a server that can do what Osaka does when she’s on her game from the service strip.
Osaka’s serve vs Swiatek’s return is the key to Osaka’s fortunes on Sunday. Osaka ranks second on the WTA tour behind only Barty in service games won (87.5 percent) and break points saved in 2022. She’ll need to continue this trend to survive Swiatek and keep the match from becoming more about baseline grinding and physical dexterity in order to win.
If the former happens, it's advantage Swiatek. If Osaka can use her serve plus one to take the Tecnifibre out of Swiatek's capable hands, we could be in for a classic.
Swiatek, who ranks 15th in service games won on tour in 2022, also has a growing belief in her own serve.
She remembers facing Osaka in 2019 and the impression the Japanese star's serve made on her. Today, she feels like she can have that effect on opponents as well.
“I also remember that in important moments it kind of struck me that the best players are basically using their serve to stay in the match when they have like break down or something or they have breakpoints,” she said. “Right now I'm that kind of player who can do that.”
Here comes another rite of passage for Swiatek, the heir apparent. She'll have the opportunity to become No.1 by completing the Sunshine Double - a feat that only three other woman (Steffi Graf, Kim Clijsters and Victoria Azarenka) have ever accomplished.
Already she is one of five WTA players to have reached the final at Indian Wells and Miami in the same season while younger than 21. The other four all claimed at least five Grand Slam singles titles.
Swiatek (now 25-3 on the season) has passed every test that she has faced since she started her career-best winning streak in Doha in February, causing us to forget that losing is even a possibility when she takes the court. But there is an X-factor when it comes to Osaka (11-2), and a growing confidence in her game and mind, that Swiatek will have to contend with.
Swiatek is aware of the challenges, and she says her mission is just to keep doing what she has been doing.
“I am excited for sure, but on the other hand for me, the most important job is this is a match like any other, and really, I don't want to change my routines, I don't want to change my attitude, because it's been working out pretty well. I'm going to treat it like any other match,” she said
Osaka, one of the sports best big-match players, is in a good place mentally. Taking the big step of talking to a therapist for the first time after Indian Wells has clearly helped her break free of some of the issues that affected her. Which leaves her mind free to enjoy competition, and to wander a bit.
After her semifinal victory Osaka was asked what she was thinking at that moment. She made it clear that her hunger burns in more ways than one.
"I'm honestly thinking now is like how to get Korean food Uber Eats to my place, because there is, like, nothing, like it's outside of the delivery range," she replied.
An unconventional answer from an unconventional player. Osaka will save the intensity for the big points, and if she plays them right on Sunday, she'll have her chances against the hottest player in the sport.