Navarro’s Mind Game Beats Osaka in London

LONDON (AP) — Emma Navarro played a clean game to beat Naomi Osaka at Wimbledon on Wednesday: just five unforced errors against 16 winners; zero break points faced; a 4-for-4 success rate at the net.

What else helped Navarro reach the third round for the first time at the All England Club by knocking out Osaka — a four-time major champion and former world No. 1 — 6-4, 6-1 in less than an hour on Centre Court?

Little reminders that the 23-year-old American types into the notes app on her smartphone before every match.

“That’s an atmosphere that can easily overwhelm me, or any player, and I just spent a lot of time mentally preparing myself for the emotions and the nerves that I was going to feel. Once I got out there, I really felt at home,” said Navarro, who won the 2021 NCAA singles title for the University of Virginia and is seeded 19th at the grass-court Grand Slam tournament.

“In the notes I told myself to make the track my home and never be afraid to stay there as long as it lasts,” Navarro said. “I did that today and it’s pretty cool to come out on the other side of an experience where you’re not sure how it’s going to end.”

It turned out she didn’t have to worry.

Osaka has never been at her best on grass or clay – all of her Grand Slam trophies have come on hard courts at the US Open and Australian Open – and her victory on Monday was her first at Wimbledon since 2018. She last played at the tournament in 2019.

“Although at first it seemed a bit like we were trading games, I don’t know why, [but] “I didn’t feel like I was completely confident. I didn’t feel like I was playing that well,” said Osaka, who returned to the tour in January after taking 15 months off to become a mother. “I think those doubts started creeping in a lot early on. [and] in my game.”

Navarro, who grew up in South Carolina, has been climbing the rankings quickly of late, going from No. 143 at the end of 2022 to No. 38 at the end of last year to No. 17 this week.

She failed to reach the second round in her first four Grand Slam appearances, but began this season by reaching the third round at the Australian Open and then the fourth round at Roland Garros. She can now get that far at Wimbledon with a win on Friday over Diana Shnaider, a 20-year-old Russian who played collegiate tennis at North Carolina State.

Navarro will have more important thoughts to share about himself before that match.

“I just write down some bullet points. There are things that are constant, that I always write down. And then there are other things that are specific to a certain day or a certain game,” she said. “They’re always mental cues, not so much tactical.”

The habit started in 2019 when I was a teenager, after losing in three sets at a junior tournament in Milan, Italy, less than two weeks before the start of the French Junior Open.

Navarro said she was so disappointed — “I had played so tight and was so afraid of losing” — that she sat cross-legged on a patch of grass with her coach for an hour and a half, brooding over the result and pulling the blades out of the ground until only dirt was left.

“I said to myself, ‘I never want to feel like this again. Mentally unprepared.’ When I went to the French Open that year, I was very nervous,” she recalled, “and I just felt like I had to get my thoughts down on paper.”

In Paris, things worked out well: Navarro reached the junior final, where he defeated Zheng Qinwen (runner-up at the Australian Open this year) and then lost to Leylah Fernandez (runner-up at the 2021 US Open).

Now Navarro is climbing through the ranks of major tournaments and playing on the biggest stages in her sport.