“I’d rather talk about my clothes”: Osaka reaches the Wimbledon fourth round

Naomi Osaka is still making a statement at Wimbledon: pairing off-court flamboyance with growing on-court confidence, she beat the unseeded Australian Daria Kasatkina 6-1, 6-3 to reach the fourth round for the first time.

She is widely regarded as one of the leading trendsetters in tennis, and her striking dresses in the first week drew plenty of attention. But the four-time Grand Slam champion from Japan is letting her tennis speak as well.

Osaka herself, though, has no objection at all to the conversation staying on the outfits. “I’d honestly rather talk about my clothes,” she said at a press conference. “In a way I feel much better equipped to talk about clothes than about my tennis. It’s strange, because I’ve been playing tennis for twenty-odd years. Some days I don’t feel like an expert at it. But if it’s about my look, I can go on forever. I really do enjoy that people care and that they pick apart the fabrics and the stories behind them. I don’t mind.”

Having shed the latest variation on her Kill Bill-style walk-on ensemble — this time a floral-print robe — the 14th seed mixed power with precision. In the third game she hit a backhand winner, broke Kasatkina’s serve, consolidated the double break with a deep forehand and raced through the first set on a sun-drenched Court One. “I’ve never actually won on this court, so I’m very happy that I now have a genuinely good memory here,” she said to loud applause.

“The longer I stay in the tournament, the more stories I can tell with my looks, because I love mixing them up,” Osaka added. “And on the tennis I’m feeling very good too. Fairly confident. I think I’m playing really well. But there are only so many questions you can ask about tennis, you know? The clothing questions are kind of endless.”

The 28-year-old Japanese player, who reached her first grass-court final in Bad Homburg before withdrawing injured, showed she can be a force in Wimbledon’s second week too: she let an early lead slip in the second set but worked her way to two match points and converted the second in style.

Her next opponent promises intrigue — world number one Aryna Sabalenka or former Roland-Garros champion Jelena Ostapenko, for a place in the quarter-finals. “My confidence is fairly high,” Osaka says. “I know what my tennis looks like on grass. That puts me in a fairly steady place going into a match, whoever the opponent is.”