Naomi Osaka makes very candid admission at Wimbledon - 'Fear crept along'

Naomi Osaka has admitted to being 'paralysed by fear' at times in a candid assessment of her struggles on grass courts. The four-time Grand Slam champion has excelled on hard courts in the past, winning the Australian Open and US Open. However, she has never made it past the third round at Wimbledon.

Osaka has made an impressive start at SW19 this year, with the 27-year-old yet to drop a set after the first two rounds. She earned a comfortable win over Talia Gibson in her opening match before sailing past Katerina Siniakova in the second round. A meeting with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who was a French Open finalist in 2021, will await Osaka in round three.

Speaking after her victory over Siniakova, the Japanese player was quizzed on how she has adapted to grass-court tennis after many years of internal fears and self-doubt.

Osaka said: "What's ironic is, like, at the beginning of the tournament when I did my press, I don't know who asked me this, but basically it was a question about like my first time playing on grass.

"Then I had a solid thought about it and I realised, like, when I was younger I had no fear and I think when you're young you fear nothing and that's one of the really cool things about it.

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"But I don't know, with age fear kind of crept along and I guess paralysed me in a way, so 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 and yeah, I just hope that in years to come and hopefully this year I can do a lot better in this tournament."

Osaka will be hoping to extend her stay at Wimbledon with victory over Pavlyuchenkova on Friday. The winner of that match will go up against either Diane Parry or Sonay Kartal in the fourth round.

It has been four years since Osaka last won a Grand Slam title, prevailing at the Australian Open in 2021. She also claimed the honours in 2019 and became the first player from Japan to win a Grand Slam singles title at the US Open a year earlier.

Osaka's progress to the third round at Wimbledon marks her deepest run at the All England Club since 2018. Last year, she made it through her opening match before losing at the hands of Emma Navarro in straight sets.

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