MIAMI: Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka rallied to beat Ukrainian qualifier Yuliia Starodubtseva 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Tuesday to reach the second round of the Miami Open.

The Japanese star captured her first match win since she reached the third round of the Australian Open — where she retired with an abdominal injury while trailing Belinda Bencic.

Osaka bounced back from a first-round loss to Camila Osorio at Indian Wells, a match she called the “worst match I’ve ever played in my life”.

She said on Tuesday she’d learned from that disappointing performance.

“[In Indian Wells] I was just over-hitting a lot, so I tried to use my legs,” she said in her on-court interview.

“I was going to run into every corner if I had to, and we were going to have to play for three hours if she was going to beat me.”

In fact, Osaka polished off the victory in two hours and 28 minutes, battling back after dropping the first five games.

Starodubtseva led 4-2 in the second set, but Osaka’s 10 aces helped her recover and she was in control in the third set to launch her bid for a first title in the city she considers her US home. She was runner-up to Iga Swiatek in 2022 in her best Miami Open finish.

Osaka next faces 24th seed Liudmila Samsonova. The 27-year-old is still trying to return to peak form after returning from a 15-month break last year after giving birth to daughter Shai in 2023.

Her year got off to a promising start when she reached her first final since 2022 in Auckland, but she withdrew with an abdominal injury while leading that match and was later forced out in Melbourne.

In other first-round action, Sofia Kenin beat Petra Kvitova 6-4, 7-5 in a battle of former Grand Slam champions.

Kenin the 2020 Australian Open winner, booked an all-American second-round meeting with world number three Coco Gauff, the 2023 US Open champion who is coming off a fourth-round exit at Indian Wells.

Kvitova, a two-time Wimbledon champion who won the Miami Open in 2023, is still seeking her first match win since returning to action in February, a little more than seven months after giving birth to son Petr last July.

She had stepped away from the game due to her pregnancy on New Year’s Day 2024.

Published in Dawn, March 20th, 2025