Naomi Osaka

When Osaka won her first GS at the 2018 US Open, many people compared her to the other Asian GS winner at the time, China’s Li Na, who won two in her career.  But it was clear that Osaka was in a league of her own way ahead of Li Na, even in 2018.  Li Na actually had a high praise for Osaka well before then.  Now that Osaka just won her 4^th GS at the Australian Open, the picture is no longer in doubt.  Osaka is at least as good as Henin or Seles, capable of winning close to 10 GS.  Maybe Evert, etc, 18 GS.  If lucky, talked about in the same sentence with Steffi and Serena.

Li Na was lucky in a sense that she played for a long time, when Serena was in her slow decline and everybody else was mediocre, the field littered with 1 or 2 GS winners during that period.  Has Osaka been luckier when Serena is worse now?  Maybe, but also look at what Osaka is capable herself: in every single part of the game she is much superior to Li Na.  She serves as well as Serena.  Serena’s serve has been the least degraded aspect of her game for 10 years, yet Osaka still won’t be overmatched even by Serena’s best serves.  Osaka obviously moves better than Serena would even do.  Osaka’s groundstrokes are at least as powerful as Serena’s, but her angles are sharper, partly because she gets into better positions more due to her faster footwork.  Perhaps the best part of Osaka’s game is her mentality, as tough as Serena’s.  Plenty of players hit the ball as hard as Serena, but they still lost to Serena, even today.  The brain is the reason.  And Li Na is one of the least smart elite players I have ever seen.  But the way Osaka plays, one can see after just 1 min to tell the difference from most other players.  In fact, she is the female player I will pick against anybody else when under pressure.

How many GS she will win depends on a lot of things.  Her health, luck, obviously.  And motivation, like when she lost some interest for one year after the 2019 Australian Open.  Also, she is joined by many good, young players, like Barty, whom she hasn’t been able to dominate the way like Serena did with her peers before.  Probably the only thing that might be considered a “weakness” in Osaka’s game is her relative lack of variety of shots.  She dominates Serena simply because she really likes Serena’s power, when she can easily absorb it and direct it back with better angles against Serena.  But if someone changes strategies, shots, pace, and directions constantly, Osaka will make too many mistakes.  This is something she can improve, as she gets older, smarter, and less strong.  Serena actually adds varieties into her game and be a better defender as she gets older and can no longer overpower opponents days in and out.  No reason why Osaka can’t do that.