Home loss 'sucks' for Osaka

TOKYO • Naomi Osaka's dreams of a home Olympic gold were yesterday crushed by a 6-1, 6-4 defeat by Czech Marketa Vondrousova as her return to action came to an abrupt end.

The four-time Grand Slam winner, one of the faces of the Tokyo Games, struggled in an error-strewn display, committing 14 unforced errors in just the first set.

The world No. 2 battled to find her rhythm in the second set, which was tighter than the first.

The 23-year-old second seed nearly matched Vondrousova on points and even managed to break her opponent's serve, but the Czech played with a cool beyond her 22 years, neutralising Osaka's power with spins and slices.

Osaka's exit blows the women's draw wide open after the exits of world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty of Australia and Belarusian third seed Aryna Sabalenka, and she admitted she let a golden chance to become Japan's first Olympic tennis champion slip past her.

"How disappointed am I? I mean, I'm disappointed in every loss, but I feel like this one sucks more than the others," she said.

Asked what went wrong, Osaka replied: "Everything - if you watch the match, then you would probably see. I feel like there's a lot of things that I counted on that I couldn't rely on today."

The third-round defeat follows a turbulent few months for Osaka, who abandoned her French Open campaign in late May and skipped Wimbledon, citing the need to preserve her mental health.

"I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this. It's maybe because I haven't played in the Olympics before and for the first year, (it) was a bit much," she said.

After looking assured in the first two rounds after her two-month hiatus, she made a dreadful start under the centre-court roof at a rain-hit Ariake Tennis Park and never recovered.

"I've taken long breaks before and I've managed to do well. I'm not saying that I did bad right now, but I do know that my expectations were a lot higher," Osaka said.

"I feel like my attitude wasn't that great because I don't know how to cope with that pressure."

Vondrousova, ranked 40 places below her, will go on to face Spain's Paula Badosa in the quarter-finals and the 2019 French Open finalist was delighted.

"Of course, it's one of the biggest career wins," she said.

"Naomi is a great player, she has so many Grand Slams, so I knew it would be a tough match. I'm very happy with my play."

There were further upsets as Czech fifth seed Karolina Pliskova slumped to a 6-4, 6-2 loss to Italy's Camila Giorgi and Swiss ninth seed Belinda Bencic beat French Open champion Barbora Krejcikova 1-6, 6-2, 6-3.

Ukrainian fourth seed Elina Svitolina is now the highest-ranked women's player remaining in Tokyo after she beat Greek Maria Sakkari 5-7, 6-3, 6-4.

Earlier, Stefanos Tsitsipas advanced to the men's third round as he avenged last month's Wimbledon first-round loss to Frances Tiafoe, with the Greek beating the American 6-3, 6-4.

Kei Nishikori remains Japan's sole hope of a maiden gold medal in singles tennis after the 2016 Rio bronze medallist beat American Marcos Giron 7-6 (7-5), 3-6, 6-1 to advance to the third round.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS