'Getting down to world No. 2 would be the best thing for Naomi Osaka'
Mats Wilander believes that being world No. 1 is influencing the Naomi Osaka's mentality in approaching matches. The Japanese player started leading the rankings in late January following her second Major triumph in the Australian Open. Now Osaka, who was bidding to win her third consecutive Grand Slam, lost to Katerina Siniakova in the French Open third round.
"I can relate to that", Wilander said about being No. 1. "It happened to me once in the Australian Open 1991, I was world No. 4 for 20 weeks but I did not feel like the world No. 1. In this tournament Osaka needed the supportive team around that would make her face the reality and say, Listen, you are not the number one in the world on the court at the moment because the clay-court season and Indian Wells and Miami were not that good. Somehow you have the No. 1 ranking next to yourself. But the way she plays will make her win more Majors, the best thing for her would be to go down to No. 2 and then start fighting to be back to the No. 1. But at the same time, we had said that it would be a tricky match. Siniakova played an excellent tennis, she is one of the best doubles players in the world, she played a lot of Fed Cups with Petra Kvitova, Karolina Pliskova and Lucie Safarova, she has been around for so long and she has a top player experience."
On the concept that everybody can beat everybody in women's tennis, Osaka said: "It makes it seem like there is no consistency. But, I mean, I think there is -- I don't know. There is always people you can tell are going to go far, and I kind of hoped I was going to be one of them, but obviously I'm here now. I don't know. I don't really look at other people in that way. I kind of concentrate on myself."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2KlK8qg
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