Czech Republic’s Karolina Muchova celebrates her second round match win against Japan’s Naomi Osaka at the US Open tennis tournament on August 29, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters
Seemingly back in her U.S. Open match, suddenly a point from getting to a third set, Naomi Osaka lost her way Thursday night, missing forehand after forehand until she ceded that game and chucked her racket, sending it clattering on the Arthur Ashe Stadium court.
Not much later, she was out of the tournament, eliminated 6-3, 7-6 (5) by Karolina Muchova in the second round of an event where Osaka won two of her four Grand Slam titles.
“It’s a little rough, because I do take these losses really personally. It’s like a dramatic word, but I feel like my heart dies every time I lose,” said Osaka, the champion at Flushing Meadows in 2018 and 2020, and at the Australian Open in 2019 and 2021. “It sucks a lot, but I’ve been trying to be more mature and learn and talk more about them.”
Osaka — once ranked No. 1 but now No. 88 after missing nearly 1 1/2 years because of mental health breaks and time off to have a baby — struggled for much of the early going, dropping five consecutive games and 22 of 26 points in one stretch.
But she played much better in the second set, getting her only break of the match to lead 5-4 and yelling “Come on!” when Muchova netted a forehand. The crowd roared for Osaka.
Serving for that set, Osaka hit a 119 mph ace, her fastest of the match, to lead 40-love. That gave her three chances to extend the match to a third set. That’s when Osaka really faltered, making five forehand errors, with a double-fault mixed in, to waste all three of those set points and, worse, get broken.
“During the pressure moments, I got nervous, and I don’t know if I just have to keep playing more matches and get used to that feeling, especially on a really big stage,” Osaka said. “Honestly, if I get past the disappointment, I feel pretty proud of myself to have gotten that many opportunities while still feeling like I could have played much better.”
When they got to the tiebreaker, it was Muchova who asserted herself, then used some scrambling defense on the last point, flinging the ball back over the net and seeing Osaka send a swinging volley out.
“This is unbelievable — the atmosphere and the people. This is crazy energy,” said Muchova, a 28-year-old from the Czech Republic.
She enjoyed a breakout season in 2023, reaching the final at the French Open…