MELBOURNE, Australia – Naomi Osaka remained unbeaten in the Grand Slam final with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Jennifer Brady at the Australian Open on Saturday.
Osaka, 23, became the first woman to win her first four Grand Slam finals since Monica Seles did so in 1990 and 1991, en route to nine overall championships.
Osaka won the first set after Brady missed an open chance to serve for the set. In the second, Osaka seized control with a 4-0 lead and held on to the championship.
Osaka, who also won the Australian Open in 2019, now have a series of 21 match victories, spanning 53 weeks and including a championship race at the US Open, where she defeated Victoria Azarenka in three sets in the final has. .
Osaka’s last loss to Sara Sorribes Tormo of Spain in a Fed Cup qualifier last February came before the coronavirus pandemic closed the tennis season for five months.
After the match, Osaka calls it a privilege to be able to play a major tournament given the public health crisis. “I did not play my last Grand Slam with fans, but just having this energy really means a lot,” she said.
Brady, a 25-year-old American, made her first appearance in a Grand Slam final, about five months after losing to Osaka in a heavyweight semifinal at the US Open. Brady, a member of UCLA’s national championship team in 2014, became the first woman with collegiate experience in the finals of the tournament since 1983. She tried to become the first to win the title since Barbara Jordan of Stanford did so in 1979.
Brady, who was out of the top 50 at the start of 2020, ranked the tournament ranked 24th in the world, and after her run at Melbourne Park she will drop to 13th place.
Third place Osaka, representing Japan in the competition, moves up to number 2, behind Australian Ashleigh Barty, who fell in the quarterfinals. Osaka spent long stretches of 2019 at number 1.
Her path to the final in Melbourne included five opponents currently ranked in the top 50, including 23-time Grand Slam singles champion Serena Williams, whom she beat in the semi-finals in live sets. Osaka bounced back from the edge of defeat in the fourth round, facing Garbiñe Muguruza and fending off two match points in a 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory. She dropped just 11 games in her next two games en route to the final.
Among the active players, only two women have more Grand Slam titles than Osaka: Williams and her sister Venus, with seven. Osaka’s championships all got on track and started with her victory at the US Open in 2018, where she beat Serena Williams in a live series in the final.
Osaka, who was asked before Saturday’s match to explain her perfect record in the final, described the championship match as’ the biggest fight ‘and said:’ I think I am fighting the hardest in the final. I think this is where you differentiate yourself.