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Naomi Osaka celebrates her comeback win after beating Belinda Bencic in an exciting semifinal in a 4-6 6-3 6-4. The four-time grand slam champion will now face Iga Swiatek. “(I was) just battling my inner thoughts and trying to know that I must play one point at a time and adjust if I have to but try not to overwhelm myself with my thoughts,” she told reporters, referring to her first final since the Australian Open last year.
“I feel like if I was negative for a split second, I would have lost the match today,” Osaka added. ”I have to keep pumping myself up, and I haven’t played as many matches as a lot of these other players, so I just have to keep learning.”
On Saturday, Osaka will try to recover her title of the No.1 player in the world. “Man idk what’s going on, but I’m just so grateful right now,” she tweeted. “Cheers to the ups and downs of life for making me appreciate this moment even more. We’re back in a final; see you on Saturday.”
Osaka’s win comes after she decided to step out of the tennis court to focus on her mental health. “Hey everyone, this isn’t a situation I ever imagined or intended when I posted a few days ago. I think now the best thing for the tournament, the other players, and my well-being is that I withdraw so that everyone can get back to focusing on the tennis going on in Paris,” she said at the time.
“I never wanted to be a distraction, and I accept that my timing was not ideal and my message could have been clearer. More importantly, I would never trivialize mental health or use the term lightly.”
“The truth is that I have suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018, and I have had a really hard time coping with that,” she continued.
Naomi Osaka is one of the most explosive and influential tennis players of all time. She is the first Asian player to hold the No.1 ranking in singles and the first Japanese player to win a Grand Slam.
Her extraordinary tennis triumphs and her off-court activism make her one of the biggest global names in all sports.