MELBOURNE, Australia — Within an hour of her third-round loss at the Australian Open, defending champion Naomi Osaka had consigned it to the past.Osaka had two match points against 60th-ranked Amanda Anisimova in the third set Friday, and she missed two backhands.
"I'm not sure if I'm going to have regrets about those two match points,'' Osaka said."Like, I thought she played really well. But I can't really look in the past anymore, you know?Anisimova, who had lost her previous nine matches against top 20 players and had to rebound from a set and a break down to survive her first-round match, hit 46 winners to Osaka's 21.
Anisimova won her first WTA hardcourt title at a tuneup tournament in Melbourne this month and is now on an eight-match winning streak — the longest of her career in main draw matches. "I can't win every match. So I just have to, like, take that into account,'' Osaka said."I feel like I grew a lot in this match. The last match that I played in New York I think I had a completely different attitude, so I'm really happy with — you know, of course I lost, but I'm happy with how it went.
She had her son with her at a news conference and five-year-old Leo, wearing his sunglasses and sitting on his mother's knee, described the two-time champion's form as:"Awesome!'' Other fourth-round pairings that were set up Friday include fifth-seeded Maria Sakkari against 21st-seeded Jessica Pegula and No. 8 Paula Badosa against Madison Keys, who held off Wang Qiang 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 on Friday.
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