Tennis: Osaka wins tough 1st-round battle in Wimbledon return – The Mainichi

LONDON (Kyodo) — Naomi Osaka made a winning return to Wimbledon on Monday with a 6-1, 1-6, 6-4 opening-round victory over Diane Parry of France.

Contesting the tournament for the first time since 2019, the four-time Grand Slam champion from Japan had to dig deep to overcome her 53rd-ranked opponent in 1 hour, 32 minutes.

Osaka was down a break on two occasions in the third set but clawed her way to a 5-4 lead before Parry conceded match point with her third double fault of the decisive game.

The former world No. 1 said it “feels like a dream” to be back at the grass-court major but admitted the match had its share of stressful moments.

“I wish I could say I enjoyed it all the time,” she said. “My heart was racing a lot, but I feel like these are the type of matches that you kind of have to play, just in order to ease into the tournament.”

Osaka, who returned from a maternity break in January, notched the comeback win a day before her daughter’s first birthday. She will face No. 19 seed Emma Navarro of the United States in the second round.