Osaka reaches a first Wimbledon fourth round after 13 years of waiting

Japanese seed No 14 Naomi Osaka reached the fourth round of Wimbledon for the first time in her career on Friday, dismantling Australian Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 6-3 to move into the second week at the All England Club for the first time in a 13-year professional career.

The four-time Grand Slam champion, twice a winner at both the Australian Open and the US Open, has never enjoyed a comparable run on grass, and she made short work of the barrier here. Osaka was clinical from the outset, racing through the opening set for the loss of a single game and never surrendering control of the second.

She struck 25 winners to 13 unforced errors, served five aces without a double fault, and ventured forward with unusual conviction, winning seven of her 13 net approaches – a marked contrast to a career built largely from the baseline.

The result completed an overdue landmark for a player whose game was long thought ill-suited to the surface. Osaka reflected on it with evident feeling. “In my career, I’ve actually never won on this (No.1) court,” she said after the match, drawing a warm response from the crowd. “So I’m really glad to have made a good memory here. Thank you for cheering us on, it was a really big honour for me to play.”

It caps a season of visible improvement on surfaces once considered her weakest. Osaka reached the fourth round of Roland-Garros for the first time only last month, and has now backed it up on grass, a two-tournament stretch that marks a genuine broadening of her game after years of dominance confined to hard courts.

Sabalenka or Ostapenko next

Osaka had reached the third round with wins over Russian Anastasia Gasanova (6-3, 6-2) and Frenchwoman Elsa Jacquemot (6-1, 7-5), while Kasatkina, ranked No 65, had come through against Indonesian Janice Tjen (6-7 (5), 6-1, 6-4) and Englishwoman Mimi Xu (6-2, 3-6, 6-2) before running into an opponent in command of the occasion.

There was time, too, for a lighter note, Osaka asked how she had marked her daughter’s birthday the previous day. “I don’t think I should be telling you this, but she was kind of bad yesterday,” she said with a smile. “We tried to take her to the park, but then she needed to go to time out. She blew out her candles and made a wish, I hope her wish is to behave better, but if not, today’s a new day.”

Osaka will next face the winner of the third-round meeting between top seed Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus and Latvian Jelena Ostapenko.