Naomi Osaka's 2021: a season at the top again?

Naomi Osaka's 2020 was a great year, but in 2021 the Japanese can aspire to become the undisputed queen of the woman's tennis, but patience and perseverance will be needed. A new Serena Williams, who can aspire to take the role that was Serena in the past years.

The Japanese has everything to impose itself on its rivals: physical and technical strength, mental persistence and tactics. What's missing for consistent dominance? The continuity, which often, during the past seasons, between one success and another, has somehow limited it.

But today, compared to the past, Osaka seems a more mature and complete tennis player, ready to dominate. Naomi has passion, strong personality and great skills: in 2021, if the maturation process continues, what will her rivals do to stop her? Where she can win in the Slams? On fast surfaces like the Australian Open and the US Open. On the grass-courts need experience, but who knows.

Talking of the 2020 season, Naomi, at the Australian Open, was defeated by 15-year-old Cori Gauff, who managed to prevail over the Japanese with a score of 6-3 6-4.  Subsequently, many tournaments are canceled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic that broke out around the world starting in March: the Wimbledon tournament is canceled for the first time since 1945 and the Tokyo Olympics are postponed to 2021. As for the ranking, the WTA decides to freeze the points of all tennis players on 9 March 2020. 

Naomi Osaka's 2021: a season at the top again?

The first tournament in which Osaka takes part after the pandemic is the Western & Southern Open 2020, where it imposes herself: she reached the final where she should have faced Viktoryja Azaranka, but the Japanese retired due to injury.

Later she participates in the US Open 2020, where she eliminated, in order, Misaki Doi, Camila Giorgi, Marta Kostjuk, Anett Kontaveit, Shelby Rogers and Jennifer Brady in the semifinal. In the final she is called to face Viktoryja Azaranka again, against whom she wins in comeback for 1-6 6-3 6-3, winning her second US Open and third career Slam on as many finals played. That was also the last tournament of the season for the Japanese.

Naomi in 2020 was also one of the great supporters of Black Lives Matter. But recently, the former world number one was asked on Instagram if he perceives as a problem the fact of possessing in a sense two nationalities, having been born in Japan but raised in the United States: "I certainly don't, but some do. Almost every week a new article comes out about these people who are unable to label me due to my ethnicity and nationality. "

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/3nQA4q8