Tokyo 2020 - Naomi Osaka sweeps China's Zheng Saisai aside to reach the second round at the Olympics
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Updated 25/07/2021 at 05:49 GMT
Naomi Osaka began her home Oympics in superb form, defeating China's Zheng Saisai in straight sets 6-1 6-4. Osaka was playing in her first match in two months but showed no signs of rust as she swept Zheng aside. Osaka is the top seed left in the women's signels tournament after Ash Barty was knocked out of the Games earlier on Saturday.
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Naomi Osaka crushed China’s Zheng Saisai to reach the second round of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
The home favourite is the highest seed left in the singles tournament after Ash Barty suffered a shock defeat in her first-round match earlier on Sunday.
Osaka was representing Japan after a break from action due to mental health reasons, but was in fine form on her return to the court, taking just under an hour and a half to progress to the second round.
The 23-year-old produced three aces in the first game to set the tone and then broke her opponent at the first time of asking before repeating the trick in Zheng’s next service game.
In fact it was not until the sixth game that Zheng finally picked up a game in the match. It did little to knock Osaka out of her stride, however, and the set was settled in the next game after just 32 minutes of play.
Zheng appeared to be having issues with her racquet and headed down the tunnel to retrieve a new one between sets. But the Chinese player was unhappy with the way the racquet was strung and requested a new one before returning to court.
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Despite the protests, Zheng would start the second set positively by holding serve and earned a break point off some rare sloppy shots from Osaka.
The home favourite would rescue the break point and quickly rediscovered her swagger to break Zheng and move 2-1 ahead.
Even with new racquets to her liking, Zheng continued to struggle with Osaka’s powerful serve and wasted two break points against her opponent.
Osaka held serve to move 5-3 and saw three match points pass her by in the next game before another dominant service game clinched the match.
The Japanese star will face Switzerland’s Viktorija Golubic in the second round.
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