By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Monday March 28, 2022
Naomi Osaka edged past Alison Riske to set a quarterfinal with Danielle Collins at the Miami Open.
Photo Source: Getty
Naomi Osaka isn’t thinking too far in the future – the former World No.1 is just taking it one day at a time in Miami. The decorated 24-year-old did just that and came away with a 6-3, 6-4 win over American Alison Riske on Monday.
Osaka improves to 9-2 on the season with her win and will face another American, No.9-seeded Danielle Collins in the quarterfinals. There have been bumps along the way, but it does feel like the Japanese star is trending up at the moment.
Is Osaka feeling at the top her game?
“I’m not sure if I feel confident, to be honest,” Osaka said in a post-match interview. “But I just want to make the most of the time that I have here. For me I learned a lot in Indian Wells over what happened. I want to play every point and have fun while doing it.”
Osaka broke serve three times on 12 opportunities over the course of the one hour and 32-minute contest. She faced eight break points and saved seven.
“I actually wasn’t that comfortable,” she said. “Her shots were really good and she was moving me really well, so I thought that I just had to just kind of dig through it.”
Osaka said her gameplan was to attack Riske’s forehand, but she got sidetracked along the way.
“Wim told me to hit heavy on her forehand but clearly I was playing her game, because for me I have to think to hit heavy,” Osaka said. “I don’t know, I just wanted to see what would happen if I just played regular, like what I wanted to do, so he might scold me for that a little bit.
“I focused on my serve, tried to well with my returns, I think I had a crazy amount of break points that I wasn’t able to convert, but I’m grateful that I can get to the point where I can get those break points.”
Osaka holds a 2-0 career edge over Collins, but she is aware of the fact that the American is a different player in 2022 than she was when they last met in 2019 at Indian Wells
“Honestly I don’t really think about the past too much. I know that she’s playing amazing right now and for me, a player kind of grows over time so clearly it’s going to be much different this match,” she said.