Naomi Osaka is going through monumental pressure, says Annabel Croft
Annabel Croft has been working at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championship as a TV commentator for years and the 2019 edition does not make exceptions. The British presenter sit down with Khaleej Times to speak about Naomi Osaka's momentum. The Japanese player won her second Major title at the Australian Open last month and she lost to Kristina Mladenovic in the Dubai Open first round last week. In press conference she was in tears admitting that all the buzz around her split with her coach Sascha Bajin influenced her. "It's absolutely monumental pressure", admitted Croft. "I think none of us can understand it. Coming from Japan, she has even more pressure and expectations because of the contracts and the money. You know she is very refreshingly honest. She is very well-loved by the press because she speaks from the heart. I think that's going to help her. But I think she is going to need an enormous amount of support from her family and whoever she picks as her coach because they are really going to have to try to get her mindset into a place where she can cope with these expectations and pressure because it's not easy. We have seen it before with world number ones like Dinara Safina and Ana Ivanovic. They struggled to cope with the expectations."
Croft also recognized that Osaka is in a very different position mentally than some months ago. Now people expects her to win: "It's a totally different thing when you are hunting as opposed to when you are hunted. You can't explain it to anyone unless they are in that position. So many world number ones have talked very openly about it. Marin Cilic talked about it when he was number two in the world. He said suddenly the opponents were playing free tennis because there was no pressure on them to win. He said it felt different. It was like a double-edged sword."
A few weeks ago Croft had revealed who can stop Novak Djokovic
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