Australian Open: Naomi Osaka Ousts Serena Williams

“It’s definitely not easy,” said Patrick Mouratoglou, who has coached Williams since 2012.

He added: “The only way is to focus on how to get what you want. You don’t think about what you want, you just think about what you have to do.”

In the first set, Williams did not record a winner on her forehand, her strongest side. Ten of her 16 unforced errors (against four winners) came on that wing. Her frustrations boiled over early in the second set, and she screamed to herself, “Make some shots!”

Against Osaka, Williams knew that she had to serve better than she had in the fourth round against Aryna Sabalenka and in the quarterfinals against the former world No. 1 Simona Halep. After beating Halep, Williams bemoaned the disappearance of her 136-m.p.h. weapon.

“Where is that?” she said. “It’s eluding me.”

Williams’s serve, considered the most formidable in the history of women’s tennis, continued to drag her down instead of lifting her to easy points. And unlike Halep, Osaka was able to pounce on Williams’s safe offerings and turn Williams’s service games into defensive stands. Osaka broke Williams four times, including twice in the first set.

Whenever she goes deep into the second week of a major tournament, Osaka has been an impossible out. She has a 4-0 record in Grand Slam semifinals and has won the championship in her previous three trips to the finals.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/sports/naomi-osaka-serena-williams-australian-open-final.html