By Christopher Clarey
Deservedly No. 1 in the world at age 21,
Naomi Osaka has not made it past the round of 16 in her first two tournaments wearing the crown.
After stumbling at the first hurdle in Dubai last month, she won two matches here in Indian Wells before running into
Belinda Bencic.
Although it is too early to start scurrying around the halls and sounding the alarms, it is not too early to observe that Osaka is in the midst of an adjustment process that could take more time to work through than she imagined.
In a little more than six months, the Japanese-American with Haitian roots has become a multicultural star with global reach, fired the coach who helped her zoom to No. 1 by winning two Grand Slam singles titles in a row, and hired a new coach who had yet to be a head coach at this level.
It is a lot to handle, a lot to digest, particularly with people like me poised to parse every performance for signs of trouble.
Bencic gave her plenty to digest, beating Osaka at her own game Tuesday by taking time and the initiative away as she ended Osaka’s title defense in just 66 minutes in the round of 16 by the noargument score of 6-3, 6-1.
“Naomi was rushed and didn’t have time to dictate,” said Chris Evert, an 18-time Grand Slam singles champion. “I don’t think Naomi had come across a player like that. All these big hitters like
Aryna Sabalenka, and even Serena, are not that close to the baseline. They are 2 or 3 feet back. But Bencic plays an entirely different game, and she played a flawless match. She’s back, very back.”
The proof is in her 11-match winning streak, which includes a title in Dubai and five victories over top-10 players. Born in 1997, the same year as Osaka, Bencic has the skills to challenge her often in the seasons to come if she can keep her head and health together.
“I think at a time like this with that score line, I would usually feel very depressed and sad,” Osaka said at her surprisingly upbeat post-match news conference. “But I feel pretty good right now, because I think given the circumstances I tried my best, and I don’t really have any regrets. I tried to be positive throughout the entire match. Honestly, she was just playing so well.”
It was not Osaka’s first look at Bencic, who turned 22 this month. They first played in a small-money event in Alabama on clay in 2013, and Osaka beat Bencic, 6-3, 6-3, which came as a shock considering that Bencic already was a highly regarded junior player from Switzerland and that Osaka had barely played junior tennis at all.
But there was no catching Bencic by surprise on Tuesday. She already had beaten Osaka in straight sets at the 2018 Hopman Cup team event, which is technically an exhibition. And after reaching the top 10 in 2016 and then dropping back because of wrist surgery, she is playing with the point-by-point focus of someone who knows that tennis success, with all its trappings, is not a given.
“I know how frustrating it was when I wasn’t able to play at all,” Bencic said, sounding sage beyond her years.
Osaka sounds a bit wiser herself. The meandering, sometimes cryptic interviews of 2018 have given way to something more considered and open with occasional dashes of her trademark whimsy.
This is not a coincidence. She watched clips of her past news conferences and did not like some of what she saw: the “ums,” the “likes.” At this new stage, she greets questions, of which there are many, with respect, giving the impression that she is weighing each one before answering.
Asked to compare herself now with how she was when she won Indian Wells as an unseeded player in 2018, she gave another measured response, even in defeat. “I guess one of the biggest things is I wanted to be more mature,” she said. “I feel like this is something I’m still working on — on and off the court. It’s one of the biggest goals that I have had in my entire life.”
“I might have thrown a few tantrums last year,” she added. “And this year it’s something that I’m working on improving, and I feel like it’s going well. I think I’m just more confident in myself.”
Dismissing Sascha Bajin, her silkenvoiced German coach, was certainly a bold move. Under his guidance, she defeated
Serena Williams, Bajin’s former employer, twice in 2018: once in the first round in Miami and once under much more duress in the US Open final. With Bajin still by her side, but apparently no longer in her confidence, Osaka fought through another rough-and-tumble draw to win the Australian Open in January.
Bajin is gone now, replaced by Jermaine Jenkins, who spent several years as the main hitting partner for
Venus Williams. Jenkins was quickly hired as a national coach by the US Tennis Association to work out of its national campus in Orlando, Florida. He was just settling in when he got a text message from Osaka’s agent, Stuart Duguid, inquiring about his availability. “When a great adventure is offered to you, you cannot refuse it,” Jenkins said with a chuckle this week.