US Open 2018: Reinvigorated Serena Williams eyes historic title in final showdown against her heir apparent Naomi Osaka

“This is gonna sound really bad…”

At 20, Naomi Osaka hasn’t been on the tour for too long, but her comments during interviews have given tennis a fresh, honest, and quite simply, adorable insights into her thinking. The above statement is a prefix to another such gem, but not an unused one.

Over the last year, she’s started off a sentence with the line twice, almost as if she was apologising for not being able to give the same old ‘hard work always pays off’ droll. And on both occasions, the question revolved around her playing her idol Serena Williams. On the latest occasion, after her convincing 6-2, 6-4 win over last year’s finalist Madison Keys, she was asked how she managed to save each of the 13 break points she faced.

[caption id=“attachment_5142891” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Serena Williams (L) will take on Naomi Osaka in the 2018 US Open final at Flushing Meadows on Saturday. AP[/caption]

Her answer: “This is gonna sound really bad, but I was just thinking I really wanna play Serena.”

And so it will be. A few hours before Osaka took to the court of the Arthur Ashe Stadium to seal a spot in her first ever final of a Grand Slam, Serena Williams stormed to a 6-3, 6-0 win over Latvian Anastasija Sevastova for a 31st appearance in a major final.

It’s a remarkable comeback for the 36-year-old. Just 20 months ago, she won a historic 23rd Grand Slam title – despite being eight-weeks pregnant at the time – to overtake Steffi Graf’s record. Maternity leave followed immediately, and she had to overcome complications during childbirth.

“I almost died after giving birth to my daughter, Olympia,” she wrote for the CNN.

As the 2018 season came up, she returned to the tour, took her time to get settled, and then started running through the opposition. By Wimbledon, Williams was in full-flow. And it took the bravest of shots and the stubborn ball-retrieving skills of Angelique Kerber to win the final at SW19.

That was all just a part of the process of her getting back to her best. Now at Flushing Meadows, the former world no 1 has marched to the final of the US Open for the ninth time in her career, dropping just one set on the way.

“I couldn’t have predicted this at all,” she said after the match. “This is just the beginning of my return.”

A title at the US Open will give her an unassailable 24th major – putting her equal Australian great Margaret Court’s all-time record. Importantly for Williams though, winning a Slam at the US Open, her first after returning from the recent hiatus, will mark a second beginning for her at the very venue where it all began for her.

Images on the internet are doing the rounds, of a young 17-year-old Serena with colourfully braided hair lifting the US Open trophy. That was the first of the 23 that decorate her trophy cabinet.

But now she comes up against a player who was just under two years old when she won that first title. And not just any player.

Osaka, the sprightly world no 19 has trained herself to play shots just like Serena. The sledgehammer flat groundstrokes, the big serve, and also the fondness for wearing bright colours are traits she’s picked up from the younger Williams’ sister. The pair have met once before, at the Miami Open in March. Osaka won that match in straight sets, but the result never mattered to her.

“I just wanted her, after the match, to know who I am,” she said, laughing at the thought. “She said ‘good job’ and stuff… I kinda blanked out.”

It was in that very match that Osaka came up with the first of her famed “this is gonna be really bad” quotes. The question asked that time was how did she deal with the tight situations the still-recovering Williams was putting her in.

“This is gonna be really bad, sometimes when I’m in a really hard position, when I’m serving, I’m like, what would Serena do? But I was playing her.”

Born to a Hawaiian mother and Japanese father, Osaka moved to the United States when she was just two, but represents Japan on the tour. Her father put her into tennis after watching Serena Williams at the 1999 French Open. “Even as a little kid, I always dreamed that I would play Serena in the final of a Grand Slam,” said Osaka, anointed as Serena Williams’ heir apparent.

At times, she does give a few statements in the press about how she needs to play her idol like she would any other player. It borders on a cliché when others say it because it’s been said so often. But when Osaka says it, you know it’s the truth. The youngster has the greatest of respect for the player rated the Greatest of All Time. But it’ll take a lot more than that to beat Williams, who is now craving for another title.