Naomi Osaka celebrated the greatest success of her career in Indian Wells: The Japanese woman beat Daria Kasatkina from Russia in two sets in the final of two 20-year-olds and will improve to position 22 in the world rankings.
Biggest career success for Naomi Osaka: The 20-year-old Japanese, who has been looked after by Munich’s Sascha Bajin since the end of last season, defeated the slightly favoured Russian Daria Kasatkina 6:3 and 6:2 in the final of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells and thus won the first title ever on the WTA tour.
The final of the WTA Premier Mandatory tournament started nervously from both sides, after a break from Kasatkinas followed their loss of serve. The Russian then tried to play variable games as usual, mixing slice balls with spin balls. Osaka, on the other hand, pressed auf´s Tempo, took the decisive break to 5:3 and served the first set after 39 minutes.
Osaka took the momentum from set one, took the break to 1-0. With her own serve, especially the slice variant from the debut side to the outside, the Florida-based Japanese dominated the match in this phase before the eyes of Indian Wells permanent guest Bill Gates. The break for the 4:1 in the second round had a decisive character. After 78 minutes Osaka put a backhand volley on the baseline – and received the hearty congratulations of her opponent.
On their way to the final, both players had shown themselves equally impressive: Osaka also defeated two women from the current absolute world elite: Karolina Pliskova and the world number one, Simona Halep, after former industry stars Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwanska. Kasatkina, on the other hand, delivered her fighting masterpiece in the semi-final against Venus Williams, but the performances against Angelique Kerber and Caroline Wozniacki were not of bad parents either.
Kasatkina’s run for success was not quite as surprising as that of her opponent – after all, the Russian was already in the Dubai final a few weeks ago, where she finally lost to Elina Svitolina. Naomi Osaka will now occupy 22nd place in the world rankings to be published on Monday. Despite her defeat, Daria Kasatkina has also achieved a career high: The Russian will be number eleven.