Wimbledon: Naomi Osaka loses to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the 3rd round
LONDON — Naomi Osaka might be more comfortable on grass courts these days but she will once again leave Wimbledon in the third round after a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 loss to Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Friday.
Osaka said afterward she was upset by the result because she “actually thought I could play well, like, in general” and “make a deep run here.”
“I wanted to do better than I did before,” she said. “Also, I felt like I was trying so hard.”
Asked what positives she can take away from the grass-court portion of the season, Osaka replied: “I’m just going to be a negative human being today. I’m so sorry. I have nothing positive to say about myself, which is something I’m working on.”
She is a former No. 1 now ranked 50th and a four-time Grand Slam champion, all on hard courts — she won the U.S. Open and Australian Open twice apiece.
Osaka arrived at the All England Club this year having lost three of her last four matches at the place and with a career record of 5-4 there. Her best showing was getting to the third round in 2017 and 2018; she missed the tournament in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
After a victory earlier this week, she spoke about how she played with fear on grass for years because of a knee injury she got by slipping on the surface nearly a decade ago, but was feeling better about it lately.
“With age, fear kind of crept along and, I guess, paralyzed me, in a way,” she said. “Now I’m kind of just getting over that and trying to spread my wings on grass. I think it is working, and I think I am moving pretty well.”
But from 4-all in the third set Friday, Pavlyuchenkova grabbed eight of the match’s last 10 points, holding at love, then breaking in the final game with the help of a trio of forehand unforced errors by Osaka.
This most unpredictable of Wimbledons delivered yet another surprise Friday when reigning Australian Open champion Madison Keys, the No. 6 seed, was a lopsided loser in the third round, eliminated 6-3, 6-3 by 104th-ranked Laura Siegemund of Germany.
Keys' exit left just one of the top six women in the bracket before the end of Week 1: No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, who stuck around by claiming the last five games and defeating 2021 U.S. Open champion Emma Raducanu of Britain 7-6 (6), 6-4 at a boisterous Centre Court at night.
No. 2 Coco Gauff, No. 3 Jessica Pegula, No. 4 Jasmine Paolini and No. 5 Zheng Qinwen already were out. The men's field also has seen its share of surprises, including a Wimbledon-record 13 seeds gone in the first round.
“At times, it wasn’t the best quality, let’s say. But I managed, and in the end, it's just important to find solutions and I did that well. Kept my nerves in the end," Siegemund said, then added with a laugh: "There are always nerves. If you don’t have nerves in this moment, you’re probably dead.”
Wimbledon might be the only Grand Slam event where Keys hasn't reached at least the semifinals, but she has participated in the quarterfinals there twice and is enjoying a breakthrough 2025, including her title at Melbourne Park in January.
Keys' power vs. Siegemund's spins and slices offered quite a contrast in styles, and this outcome was surprisingly one-way traffic on a windy afternoon at No. 2 Court. The key statistic, undoubtedly, was this: Keys made 31 unforced errors, 20 more than Siegemund.
