Hello and welcome to coverage from Wimbledon as Naomi Osaka takes on Aryna Sabalenka.<\/p>\n
This is one of the most eagerly anticipated matches of the tournament as two grand slam champions go toe-to-toe on Centre Court.<\/p>\n
Osaka will be hoping it will be fourth-time lucky when she faces Sabalenka, having lost all three of their meetings \u200bthis year \u2013 at Indian \u200cWells, Madrid and the French Open.<\/p>\n
Before 2026, the pair had not crossed paths for over seven years, with Osaka winning their first-ever clash en route to her maiden Grand Slam triumph at the US Open in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s the number one player in the world. If there is someone I had to lose to, I would pick that ranking position,\u201d Osaka said. \u201cIf anything, I would say I learned from all of those matches, so hopefully I can apply [that].\u201d<\/p>\n
Osaka added that playing the Belarusian on grass could be the difference.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy confidence is pretty high. For me, I know what my grass court tennis looks like. It gives me a pretty stable mindset going into the match no matter who I play,\u201d she said after her win over Daria Kasatkina on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also don\u2019t really have as many \u200cdoubts as I did \u200con clay. Maybe it would be \u2060a little bit better for me on grass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabalenka, meanwhile, is cautious about the contest despite her recent wins over Osaka.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlways been a tricky match. She\u2019s very aggressive player… every time she plays me, she\u2019s more focused,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cEvery time it\u2019s a battle. Every time it\u2019s high-level matches. Super excited to play her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hello and welcome to coverage from Wimbledon as Naomi Osaka takes on Aryna Sabalenka. This is one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[25859,10239,8,4469,85,2536,1257,8061,33672,35565,24102,8904],"class_list":["post-55098","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-osaka","tag-apple-news-free","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-japan","tag-naomi-osaka","tag-osaka","tag-sport","tag-tennis","tag-us-content","tag-wimbledon-tennis","tag-wimbledon-live","tag-womens-sport","tag-wta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55098","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}