Former World No.1 Naomi Osaka kept up her winning ways at the 2024 BNP Paribas Open with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over No.14 seed Liudmila Samsonova in Saturday's second round.
Playing the fifth tournament of her return to tour after her 2023 maternity leave, former BNP Paribas Open champion Osaka took 1 hour and 37 minutes to battle past Samsonova in their first meeting.
"I think, for me, I just want to have a lot more fun on the court," Osaka said, after her win. "In Australia I was really hard on myself and I found myself not really celebrating just being on the court. So I think in this tournament, I just really wanted to emphasize that I don't expect myself to win every match, but I want to have fun and enjoy the moments while I can. "
Here are some more key facts and figures from the big-hitting clash:
34: Four-time Grand Slam champion Osaka posted her 34th career win over a Top 20 player -- but her first in almost two years. Before Saturday's victory, Osaka's last Top 20 win came over Danielle Collins in the 2022 Miami Open quarterfinals.
14: Osaka improved her Indian Wells win-loss record to 14-3 over her career. Osaka won her first WTA title at the 2018 BNP Paribas Open, defeating Daria Kasatkina in the final to capture the WTA 1000 crown. Osaka would go on to win her second career title later that year, at the US Open.
76.8: Osaka is currently this season's tour leader in percentage of first-serve points won. She has won 76.8 percent of those points throughout the year, 0.3 percent ahead of second-place Zheng Qinwen. Osaka was under that rate against Samsonova, winning 66 percent of her first serves.
65: In Saturday's first set, Osaka had a 65 percent success rate behind her second serves, compared to Samsonova’s 41 percent. Osaka needed to keep that number up as she saw a 4-1 first-set lead disappear -- Samsonova reeled off four straight games to serve for the set at 5-4.
However, Osaka broke back for 5-5, then found some of her best serves of the day to erase two break points in a crucial hold for 6-5. In the following game, Osaka closed out the first set by slamming a backhand winner down the line to break Samsonova.
"I definitely felt like I was more confident today with, like, the set point, and just kind of trusting myself and knowing that no matter what happens, go for my shots and don't live life with regret," Osaka said.
11: Osaka claimed the only break of the second set at 3-1, then fended off one break point in the last game of the match before triumphing. Osaka and Samsonova finished the match with 13 winners apiece, but Osaka had 11 fewer unforced errors than Samsonova on the day.
3-1: Osaka's next opponent will be No.24 seed Elise Mertens, who dispatched Wang Xinyu 6-1, 6-4 on Saturday. Osaka has a 3-1 head-to-head lead over Mertens, and in their most recent meeting, Osaka defeated Mertens 6-3, 6-3 at the 2021 Miami Open.
