{"id":268583,"date":"2020-09-13T07:34:27","date_gmt":"2020-09-13T11:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268583"},"modified":"2020-09-13T07:34:27","modified_gmt":"2020-09-13T11:34:27","slug":"japanese-star-osaka-overcomes-azarenka-for-second-us-open-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/13\/japanese-star-osaka-overcomes-azarenka-for-second-us-open-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Japanese star Osaka overcomes Azarenka for second US Open title"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Naomi Osaka playing at the 2020 Cincinnati Open in New York City (Photo ny AndrewHenkelman\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Fourth seed Naomi Osaka of Japan outlasted an inspired Victoria Azarenka from Belarus 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the final to win the women’s singles title of the US Open on Saturday.<\/p>\n

It was Osaka\u2019s second US Open title and third Grand Slam title after her victories at the 2018 US Open and 2019 Australian Open.<\/p>\n

“In the end all I focus on is what I can control on the tennis court. That’s what I did in 2018 final. I feel like that’s what I did this time,” said the 22-year-old Osaka, who defeated Serena Williams of the United States to win the 2018 title.<\/p>\n

Azarenka, 31, stormed to win the first set 6-1 in just 26 minutes while the Japanese was uncharacteristically sloppy hitting a whopping 13 unforced errors.<\/p>\n

At the start of the second set, Azarenka broke again for a 2-0 lead, but from there Osaka fought back to break her opponent’s serve twice and took a 4-3 lead.<\/p>\n

Osaka then gained the momentum and broke a third time to take the match to a deciding set.<\/p>\n

“I think in the first set I was so nervous, I wasn’t moving my feet. I felt like I was not playing to my best. There are too many things in my head. It would be very embarrassing to lose this in under an hour so I just have to try my best,” Osaka said of the turnaround.<\/p>\n

Osaka broke in the fourth game of the third set to take a comfortable 3-1 lead. In the next game, Azarenka blew a golden opportunity to get back into the match, wasting all three break points as Osaka recovered from 0-40 down to hold for a 4-1 lead.<\/p>\n

After that, Osaka dominated and claimed the set 6-3.<\/p>\n

With the runner-up finish, Azarenka said she’s proud of herself.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t had such results in quite a long time, so I’m very excited for it. Today, it’s a loss, but it doesn’t change for me much. Of course I would have loved to win today. It is what it is,” Azarenka said.<\/p>\n

“I gave everything that I could today on the court. I felt that I progressed a lot. I’ve played a lot of great matches. I felt that I’ve tested myself physically, mentally on very difficult stages. It’s been great. I want to continue to keep going the same way, enjoy myself,” she added.\u00a0(Xinhua)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2013 Fourth seed Naomi Osaka of Japan outlasted an inspired Victoria Azarenka from Belarus 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 in the final …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":268584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","mauthors-xinhua","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268583"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268585,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268583\/revisions\/268585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}