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Dubai R1: Naomi Osaka defeats Chang Kai-chen, 6-2, 6-4

934 views 12 replies 13 participants last post by  A Magicman 
#1 ·
Naomi was just in cruise control in this match today, despite not playing exceptionally well. I would say she played at a pretty decent level, though, except for some error-strewn patches in the middle of the first and opening stages of the second, as well as when closing it out from 52. Sealed it finally with an ace though

Movement was pretty good, groundstrokes (especially DTL) were quite good as well. Serve was firing.

She can really go far with the draw she has, so hopefully she keeps this up and takes advantage of it. She plays either an out-of-form Bertens or McHale next.

As for Kelly, didn't really look like she was in the match at all. Too many unforced errors and double faults to gift away service games, and with the way Naomi was serving, it was pretty much game over when she got broken 2 times in each set. She has the raw power, but way too inconsistent to break into the upper echelons of the game.

The crowd was pretty pathetic though, don't even think there were like 50 people in attendance? :help:

She was so nervous/soft-spoken in her on-court interview, just love her personality!
 
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#2 ·
Osaka is the polar-opposite of Pliskova in interviews. The time it takes Osaka to complete a sentence, Pliskova can fill a full bookpage. But cute answer to first impressions of the tournament: Ballkids are so fast.
 
#3 ·
:yeah:
 
#5 ·
Good start to the tournament for Naomi.

This is only her 5th match this year (one at Auckland, 2 at AO and one Fed Cup) so compared to others she's lacking matchplay somewhat. Hopefully she'll cut down on those often wild errors but her return game was good enough to make up for the dropped service games.

She'll need to step up against (most likely) McHale who gets a lot of balls back.

Nice of her to acknowledge the ball-kids in her post match interview.
 
#10 ·
Win the title!
 
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