World number two Naomi Osaka won just four games against Maria Sakkari in the Miami Open quarterfinals, putting an end to her 23-match winning run.
The world No.2 Osaka recorded no winners and hit 12 unforced errors as Sakkari served her a bagel in just 21 minutes. The four-time Grand Slam champion gave her fans some hope of a comeback as she built a 3-0 lead in the second set, but the 25th-ranked Sakkari won five games in a row from 4-1 down to score the biggest victory of her career, 6-0 6-4.
After eliminating Osaka, Sakkari said that the fact that she had saved six match points against Jessica Pegula in the previous round helped her a lot in today’s comeback. This is the Greek’s fourth straight Top 5 win.
As the WTA Insider reports on Twitter, Osaka stated after the match:
She’s a really big fighter so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I felt like I haven’t been playing well this whole tournament. I couldn’t find a groove, so mentally it’s really hard for me to play against really high-quality players with what I feel is low-quality tennis.
The defeat means that Osaka will not regain the number one ranking. She could have done so had she won the Miami Open title (the other condition was that Ashleigh Barty didn’t progress to the final). (photo: Jimmie48)
