Naomi Osaka: Today, it was a drama, so much drama in my head
Naomi Osaka lost to Belinda Bencic in a three-set, third-round match in Madrid. In press conference after her match, the Japanese said: "She played really good points. I can't necessarily say it was all on me. When you play against a good player, you have to expect that they are going to play great at times, too. Of course, I feel like I was negative on myself this match, but like I kind of tried to fix it in the third set. I think my service percentage was down. She was hitting my second serve. In the first set I was just really focussed and positive and then, in the second set, I just kept thinking about all the mistakes I was making and in the third set, I tried to replicate what I was doing in the first set and it was working for a bit and then, like, I started dwelling on my mistakes again."
She still takes some positives: "I'm really happy because I wasn't sure if I could serve in the first match and I was able to and that was my biggest concern coming into it. And, of course, I wanted to play this tournament and I'm going to play Rome, too, so there's a lot of happy things to take from this because I lost in the first round last year so anything is an improvement, honestly. Today, it was a drama, so much drama in my head. I don't know what was going on. Yeah, normally, I'm like able to move on and just concentrate on the next point. I mean, of course, my serve is one of my biggest weapons and when the first serve doesn't go in, that is always a big let-down. I think for me, since she was such a strong returner, of course I could have done better just sort of taking pace off and placing it more. But I didn't really do that, instead I tried to go for more, which wasn't necessarily the smartest thing to do, of course. And I don't know, I regret a backhand I had at 5-3, she hit, like, a short ball and I hit, like, a backhand as hard as I could into the net which was kind of ridiculous. That would have set me up for a match point. That is literally all I can think about right now."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2VrILgC
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