Emma Navarro’s meticulous mental preparation and strategic approach contributed to her remarkable victory over the former world number one, Naomi Osaka, at the prestigious Wimbledon tournament.
Indeed, Emma Navarro demonstrated exceptional tennis proficiency in her triumph over Naomi Osaka at Wimbledon on Wednesday. Her remarkable performance was characterized by a mere five unforced errors in contrast to an impressive tally of 16 winners. Additionally, she faced zero break points and achieved a flawless 4-for-4 success rate at the net.What else helped Navarro reach the third round at the All
England Club for the first time by eliminating Osaka — a four-time major
champion and former No. 1 — 6-4, 6-1 in under an hour at Centre Court? Little
reminders the 23-year-old American types into her cellphone’s notes app before
each match.
“That’s an atmosphere that could easily overwhelm me, or
overwhelm any player, and I spent just a good amount of time preparing myself
mentally for the emotions and the nerves I was going to feel. Then once I got
out there, I just felt really 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 court my home and
never be afraid to stay out there for as long as it takes,” Navarro said. “I
was able to do that today and it’s pretty cool to come out on the other end of
an experience when you’re not sure how its going to go.”
Turned out she didn’t need to worry.
Osaka has never been at her best on grass or clay — all of
her Grand Slam trophies came on hard courts at the U.S. Open and Australian
Open — and her victory Monday was her first at Wimbledon since 2018. She last
played at the tournament in 2019.
“Even though in the beginning, it was kind of like we were
trading games, I don’t know why, (but) I didn’t feel fully confident in myself.
I didn’t feel like I was playing that well,” said Osaka, who returned to the
tour in January after taking 15 months off and becoming a mother. “I guess
those doubts started trickling in a lot (and) into my game.”
Navarro, who grew up in South Carolina, has been rising up
the rankings quickly recently. She went from No. 143 at the end of 2022, to No.
38 at the end of last year to No. 17 this week.
She did not make it past the second round in each of her
first four Slam appearances, but started this season by reaching the third
round at the Australian Open, then the fourth round at the French open and now
can get that far at Wimbledon with a win Friday against Diana Shnaider, a
20-year-old from Russia who played college tennis at North Carolina State.
There are going to be more key thoughts to herself typed in
by Navarro before that match.
“I’ll write just some bullet points. There are some things
that stay constant, that I always write. And then there are other things that
are specific to a certain day or a certain match,” she said. “It’s always
mental cues, not so much tactical.”
The habit began as a teenager In 2019 after a straight-set
loss during a junior event in Milan, Italy, less than two weeks before the
start of the French Open juniors.
Navarro said she was so disappointed — “I had played so
tight and so scared to lose” — that she sat cross-legged on a patch of grass
with her coach for 1 ½ hours, stewing over the result and picking blades out of
the ground until all that was left was dirt.
“I said to myself, ‘I never want to feel like this again.
Unprepared mentally.’ Going into the French Open that year, I was really
nervous,” she recalled, “and I just felt like I needed to get my thoughts
down.”
Worked out pretty well in Paris: Navarro made it all the way
to the junior final, defeating Zheng Qinwen (this year’s Australian Open
runner-up) along the way before losing to Leylah Fernandez (the 2021 U.S. Open
runner-up).
Now Navarro is making her way through the brackets at major
tournaments and playing on her sport’s biggest stages.
“A lot of years in the making,” she said. AP
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