{"id":16437,"date":"2024-06-12T09:20:56","date_gmt":"2024-06-12T01:20:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/24hscore.org\/news\/?p=16437"},"modified":"2024-06-12T09:27:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T01:27:57","slug":"naomi-osaka-beats-fourth-seed-elise-mertens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/tennis\/naomi-osaka-beats-fourth-seed-elise-mertens\/","title":{"rendered":"Naomi Osaka beats fourth seed Elise Mertens in Wimbledon warm-up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Japanese star Naomi Osaka (26) began her grass court season with an impressive performance on Tuesday, securing a straight-sets victory over fourth seed Elise Mertens (28) in the second round of the Libema Open. Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka took control early, breaking the Belgian player twice in the first set and maintaining a strong serve to win it 6-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The second set was more competitive, with both players holding serve until the 10th game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A fortunate net cord and two powerful groundstrokes gave Osaka two match points, and she capitalized on the first to take the second set 6-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I think it&#8217;s maybe four or five years since I last played on grass but I&#8217;m super excited to be here,&#8221; Osaka said after the match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I don&#8217;t really have much experience on grass but to be able to close it out in two is something I&#8217;m very happy about,&#8221; added the Japanese player.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Osaka, currently ranked 125th in the world, has never advanced past the third round at Wimbledon, with her four Grand Slam titles coming on hard courts in Melbourne and New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Back on grass ?<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/naomiosaka?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@naomiosaka<\/a> takes out the No.4 seed Mertens for a spot in Round 2. Playing in her first match back on grass since 2019.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/LibemaOpen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">#LibemaOpen<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/NcuxmweKqg\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/NcuxmweKqg<\/a><\/p>&mdash; wta (@WTA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WTA\/status\/1800493046355689585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">June 11, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/tennis\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Tennis Livescore<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her next opponent in Hertogenbosch will be either Bernarda Pera from the United States or Suzan Lamens from the Netherlands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Osaka appeared relaxed, dancing to the music during changeovers and sharing jokes with her team in the stands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;I tried to play every point as well as I can and hopefully that will take me further and further. I guess I&#8217;m really happy&#8230; It was a really nice atmosphere,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Playing in only her second Grand Slam since giving birth to her daughter last July, Osaka came close to dethroning Iga Swiatek in the French Open second round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">World number one Swiatek went on to win her third consecutive title at Roland Garros, but Osaka provided her with the toughest challenge she faced on clay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;My match against Iga was really amazing for me even to play. I just need to play tighter matches like that because I felt like I was playing well,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Japanese star Naomi Osaka (26) began her grass court season with an impressive performance on Tuesday, securing a straight-sets victory over fourth seed Elise Mertens (28) in the second round of the Libema Open. Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka took control early, breaking the Belgian player twice in the first set and maintaining a strong&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":16441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","rank_math_description":"Japanese star Naomi Osaka (26) began her grass court season with an impressive performance on Tuesday.","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3604,2419,19],"class_list":["post-16437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis","tag-mertens-elise","tag-osaka-naomi","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16437"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16442,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16437\/revisions\/16442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/24hscore.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}