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Poland’s Iga Swiatek defeated Japanese Naomi Osaka 6-4 6-0 in the final of the Miami Open. The soon to be world number one continued her winning run as she completed Sunshine Double. The 20-year-old hasn’t dropped a set in Miami and has won 17 consecutive matches from her championship run at the Qatar Open in February.
After the match, Swiatek talked about her possible rivalry against Naomi Osaka in the coming years. She said, "I'm pretty glad that we could play this match and I think it's a start of a great rivalry and honestly when I was watching you winning US Open in 2018, I didn't even think that I'm going to be playing against you on such an important match."
“You are really an inspiration and this sport is better with you so keep going and as you said, we're 1-1 now so... playing more matches to come,” she added. She also opened up about her struggles in recent weeks as she became the woman with three ATP titles in a year. She said, "These weeks were so intense I didn't really know if I would able to keep up with the streak that I have.
"It's amazing for me that I could show mental toughness because my whole life I thought I could do more and sometimes I was losing and I didn't even know why. This season I feel like everything clicked so it's great and I am really happy."
Whereas, in her post-match interview, Naomi Osaka congratulated her opponent and her journey over the last few months. She said, "I want to congratulate Iga. I was just thinking yesterday, just like when I had that dinner with you in Australia, just watching your journey is really incredible and I hope you continue having fun."
"I have learned that like, I don't know, I'm not as disappointed as I normally would be like I think normally I would be crying in the locker room or something, but now I'm kind of like chill," she said. I feel like I know what I want to do better, and I just want to go back and start training again to like hopefully win a tournament next time."
"It's all about keeping a certain perspective. Playing Iga today, just knowing the kind of roll that she's on, I guess I have to think about it more, like what specifically did I learn today," said Osaka. It's kind of cool to be blown away by a person, like an opponent, but at the same time, I feel like I'm strong enough that that shouldn't happen.
"So I'm a bit irritated, but I feel like, you know, this is like the learning process, and something good will happen eventually if I keep sticking with what I'm doing."