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Osaka Returns to BJK Cup Duty with Hopeful Eye on Olympics

Olympic return? Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games in 2021. Jewel SAMAD / AFP/File
Olympic return? Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games in 2021. Jewel SAMAD / AFP/File
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Osaka Returns to BJK Cup Duty with Hopeful Eye on Olympics

Olympic return? Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games in 2021. Jewel SAMAD / AFP/File
Olympic return? Naomi Osaka lights the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Games in 2021. Jewel SAMAD / AFP/File

Naomi Osaka returns to the BJK Cup for the first time in four years on Friday, optimistically hoping to force her way into the Olympic Games.
The former world number one and four-time major winner has been named in the Japan squad to face Kazakhstan in Tokyo.
It will be the 26-year-old's first appearance in the team competition since February 2020 which means that she hasn't fulfilled the obligation of making it to two ties in one Olympic cycle.
If she is to secure a spot in the Japan team for the Paris Olympics "she'll need to go through the appeals process," a spokesman for the International Tennis Federation (ITF) told AFP.
However, the ITF also reserves a place in each singles draw at the Games to a Grand Slam title winner.
Osaka was absent from the tour from September 2022 until January this year after giving birth to her first child.
At the Australian Open, she was ranked a lowly 831 but a quarter-final run in Qatar followed by back-to-back third round spots at Indian Wells and Miami have lifted her to just inside the top 200 and number four in Japan.
The singles event at the Olympics is limited to 64 players with a maximum of four from each nation.
Osaka has already experienced the Olympics, lighting the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Covid-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021 where she went on to make the third round.
That appearance came just months after she withdrew from the French Open at Roland Garros -- the venue for this summer's Olympics tennis event -- citing mental health issues.
Japan's tie with Kazakhstan on Friday and Saturday will be staged at Tokyo's Ariake Coliseum, the venue for the 2021 Olympic tournament.
"She said that she wants to play, so I'm really happy," local media quoted Japan captain Ai Sugiyama as saying when the team for this weekend was announced.
Eight BJK Cup qualifying ties take place this week with the winners advancing to the 12-team finals in November where they will join hosts Spain, defending champions Canada, 2023 runners-up Italy and wild-card Czech Republic.
World number one Iga Swiatek leads Poland in their tie against Switzerland at Biel.
Swiatek returns to the squad for the first time since the 2022 qualifiers, when she led Poland to a 4-0 victory against Romania.
Eighteen-time champions United States host Belgium in Orlando with their challenge spearheaded by world number five Jessica Pegula.
Ukraine are playing their home tie against Romania in Florida as they attempt to reach the finals for the first time.

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Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
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Coco Gauff Comes Back at US Open and Beats Elina Svitolina

USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)
USA's Coco Gauff celebrates winning the second set against Ukraine's Elina Svitolina during their women's singles third round match on day five of the US Open tennis tournament at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City, on August 30, 2024. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP)

Coco Gauff was not aware that she'd lost five consecutive matches against opponents ranked in the top 50. She was not sure exactly how many points in a row she'd dropped — 11, it turns out — to give away the first set against Elina Svitolina in the US Open’s third round on Friday.
Here, then, is what was entirely clear to Gauff at that moment: “I needed a reset.” So before the second set, the 20-year-old from Florida went to the bathroom, changed part of her outfit and splashed water on her face. Then Gauff went back on court and extended the defense of her first Grand Slam title by turning things around to beat the 27th-seeded Svitolina 3-6, 6-3, 6-3, The Associated Press reported.
“Felt like a new person coming out,” the third-seeded Gauff said. “I just didn’t want to leave the court with any regrets.”
After making mistake after mistake early on at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Gauff managed to reel off nine of 11 games in one stretch and won again despite losing the opening set, something she did three times en route to claiming the 2023 trophy at Flushing Meadows, including in the final against Aryna Sabalenka.
“It was in my mind today. It gave me a lot of confidence,” Gauff said, “just because it felt like déjà vu a little bit.”
On Sunday, Gauff will face No. 13 Emma Navarro, one of her teammates at the Paris Olympics, for a berth in the quarterfinals. Navarro eliminated Gauff in the fourth round at Wimbledon.
“I did a good job of neutralizing her serve and just playing really aggressive from the baseline and pushing back against her groundstrokes,” Navarro, who is from South Carolina and won an NCAA title for Virginia, said about that matchup last month. “And then always getting one more ball back in the court.”
Navarro advanced Friday with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 victory over No. 19 Marta Kostyuk. Other women's fourth-round matchups set up in the afternoon were No. 7 Zheng Qinwen vs. No. 24 Donna Vekic, and No. 26 Paula Badosa vs. Wang Yafan. No. 2 Sabalenka was set to play No. 29 Ekaterina Alexandrova at night, with the winner to face No. 33 Elise Mertens, who outlasted No. 14 Madison Keys in three sets.
The first men’s fourth-round pairing that was set up was No. 6 Andrey Rublev against No. 9 Grigor Dimitrov. No. 8 Casper Ruud will meet No. 12-seeded Taylor Fritz.
Zheng-Vekic is a rematch of the gold medal match at the Summer Games four weeks ago; Zheng won that one.
Vekic beat Gauff in the third round at the Olympics, part of Gauff's recent drought against top-50 foes. That also was part of a recent slump that saw Gauff win just five of her previous nine matches.
Such a contrast to a year ago, when Gauff won 18 of 19, and 12 in a row, along the way to two tuneup titles on hard courts and then the championship at the U.S. Open that made her the first U.S. teenager to triumph at Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams in 1999.
By the conclusion of one set against Svitolina, it seemed as if another loss might be in the offing. Gauff’s totals were 16 unforced errors — nine on backhands — and just seven winners. She put only 45% of her first serves in. She went 0 for 3 on break points. She allowed Svitolina to claim 19 of the 28 points that lasted more than four strokes.
All of those numbers got better across the last two sets as Gauff tried to be more aggressive with her forehands and be more careful with her backhands. And something else changed, at the behest of her coaches: Gauff got the partisan crowd more involved.
Svitolina said afterward she was bothered by an ankle injury picked up last week
“I feel like she started to go (for) more a little bit. But to be fair, I didn’t play the way that I wanted to play. ... Then she started to be more alive," said Svitolina, a three-time Slam semifinalist. "And, of course, the crowd was behind her."
Everything began to change for Gauff on Friday after 1 hour, 10 minutes, when she broke to lead 4-2 in the second set, smacking a cross-court forehand winner. She celebrated with a yell of “Come on!” and raised her left hand to wiggle her fingers and ask the spectators to get louder.
Soon that set belonged to Gauff, who closed it with a 94 mph ace, shook a fist and shouted.
In the third, with UConn women’s basketball stars Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd sitting in her guest box at Ashe, Gauff broke right away, then held to go up 2-0 with the help of one 38-stroke point that she took when Svitolina sent a backhand wide.
Soon it was 5-1 for Gauff, whose only late wobble came when she served for the match at 5-2. She wasted three match points and got broken there. But Gauff broke right back to close things out.
“I’m glad that I had that match,” Gauff said, “because I think it just makes me match-tough and gets me ready, probably, for future challenges.”