Osaka offered herself his first trophy in a clay tournament by beating Kaja Juvan (6-1, 7-5) in the Saint-Malo final. Quadruple winner of Grand Chelem, the Japanese is not a big follower of this surface and has never spent the 16ᵉ finals in Roland-Garros in particular.
Mouratoglou, coach of the 27 -year -old player, returned to this victory:
“A trophy is a trophy. And it was difficult, for many reasons. First of all, because Naomi entered the tournament with a defeat in the first round of Madrid, which is always difficult in terms of confidence. Second, because historically, clay has never been a surface on which it played well. And finally third, because in a way, it was a WTA 125, so she couldn’t lose.
Therefore, if you put all these things together, the pressure was very high for her. I think that the clay training block that we did at the Mouratoglou Academy when I came back from Miami was great. She worked very hard. She felt ready to play there, but she lacked matches on this surface. And now she has had them. It’s beautiful.
We expect that she finally feels well on this surface, that she feels confident and that she plays freely. She is convinced that she can play well. This week, there were times, during the matches, when she played at a top 5 level, without a doubt. »»
