With her win at the 2021 Australian Open, Naomi Osaka has won the fourth Grand Slam title of her career and separated herself, Slam-wise, from all active tennis players but the Williams sisters and Kim Clijsters (if we consider Kim as an active player). Actually, only four players have won more Majors than Naomi in the 21st century: Serena, Venus, Justine Henin, and Maria Sharapova.
It should be considered that Osaka is only 23 years old (she was born in October 1997), and therefore it is not unthinkable that she could increase the tally. In terms of the age of the fourth title, once again only the Williams sisters have a clear advantage over her – Henin is only slightly ahead, while Sharapova’s performance lags far behind. In fact, if I have not miscalculated, this is the age when the aforementioned players reached the fourth Grand Slam win: Serena won the fourth title at 20 years and 11 months, Venus at 21 years and 4 months, Henin at exactly 23 years. Then we have Osaka (23 years and 5 months). Sharapova notched her fourth Grand Slam title aged 25 years and 1 month, while Clijsters at 27 years and 8 months.
In short, Osaka is building an exceptional career for herself, albeit with some limitations to consider. The first is that, in spite of her success at the Majors, she has won “just” three more WTA titles: Indian Wells 2018, Beijing 2019 (both of them Premier Mandatory events), and Tokyo 2019 (a Premier tournament). For this reason, up to now, she’s led the world rankings for just a few weeks, 25 in total. In essence, Osaka has been had rather short peaks – using a cliché, it could be said that she chooses quality over quantity.
The most relevant nugget of information, however, is the distribution of the surfaces on which she’s won: every single one of her wins have occurred on hardcourts. Even taking into consideration the tournaments in which she’s reached the final without winning (Tokyo 2016, Tokyo 2018, Cincinnati/New York 2020), the surface is always the same.
This fact is even more striking when we widen our focus a little and take into consideration the percentage of victories on the major circuit (WTA tournaments, Slams, Billie Jean King Cup). Before Miami, Osaka had won 173 matches and lost 88, as follows:
- 69.4% on hard (136 won/60 lost)
- 59.5% on red and green clay (25 won/17 lost)
- 52.2% on grass (12 won/11 lost)
Basically, from whichever point you look at it, the situation appears clear and unambiguous: Naomi’s performance changes, and a lot, depending on the surface. Why? Since this trend has emerged for a number of years, the explanation I gave myself has to do with her training as a young girl. In fact, Osaka did not undertake the classic path of a junior player, travelling the world with a schedule that, at least for the Grand Slams, follows that of the professionals. Instead, Naomi grew up without playing junior tournaments, transitioning directly into the ITF circuit and mostly on American soil. This means that, compared to her opponents, she never played that much on grass and clay.
A few weeks ago, she confirmed it herself in the press conference that was held after her victory at the Australian Open. She was asked: “You have won four Grand Slams on hardcourts. Which will be the first outside [these surfaces], clay or grass?” Naomi initially replied with a joke: “I hope on clay, because it comes first!”
But then she delved more extensively into her training regime and said that in 2019 she began to feel better on clay, while she still believes she has very little experience on grass. The numbers seem to confirm this, even if she did play a couple of ITFs on grass in Japan when she was very young; in 2015, she reached the final in the 50k event in Surbiton, losing to Diatchenko in a tournament that featured Hsieh, Kontaveit, Cetkovska, Minella, Paszek and Buzarnescu.
Anyway, we are talking about very few matches. It is inevitable, therefore, to ask whether Osaka will be able to overcome the difficulties she has had on clay and grass in order to transform herself into a more complete player, perhaps so complete as to be able to win the European Grand Slams. Before addressing the issue, I think it is useful to consider some players with similar situations and look at how things went for them.
On page 2, how other top players fared on their least favourite surfaces
