LONDON — Naomi Osaka might be more comfortable on grass courts these days but she will once again leave Wimbledon in the third round after a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Friday.
Osaka said afterward that she was upset by the result because she ''actually thought I could play well, like, in general'' and ''make a deep run here.''
''I wanted to do better than I did before,'' she said. ''Also, I felt like I was trying so hard.''
Asked what positives she can take away from the grass-court portion of the season, Osaka replied: ''I'm just going to be a negative human being today. I'm so sorry. I have nothing positive to say about myself, which is something I'm working on.''
She is a former No. 1 now ranked 50th and a four-time Grand Slam champion, all on hard courts — she won the U.S. Open and Australian Open twice apiece.
Osaka arrived at the All England Club this year having lost three of her last four matches at the place and with a career record of 5-4 there. Her best showing was getting to the third round in 2017 and 2018; she missed the tournament in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
After a victory earlier this week, she spoke about how she played with fear on grass for years because of a knee injury she got by slipping on the surface nearly a decade ago, but was feeling better about it lately.
''With age, fear kind of crept along and, I guess, paralyzed me, in a way,'' she said. ''Now I'm kind of just getting over that and trying to spread my wings on grass. I think it is working, and I think I am moving pretty well.''
